Page 23 - ATD28NOV2015

TECHNOLOGY A23
Saturday 28 November 2015

Growth _ but not expansion _ in U.S. internet gambling market

BY WAYNE PARRY Nov. 25, 2013, and took has sought to partner with Jersey says MasterCard is In New Jersey, Internet
ASSOCIATED PRESS in $122 million in its first other states that might approving 70 percent of gambling was seen as a
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- full year. Over the first legalize it to offer larger, attempted Internet gam- lifeline to Atlantic City’s
Internet gambling is slowly 10 months of this year, joint prize pools. bling transactions in the struggling casinos. Less
growing - but not expand- the Atlantic City casinos PokerStars, the world’s state, while Visa is at 62 than a year after it be-
ing - after 2 1/2 years of have already equaled largest Internet poker site, percent. PayPal also re- gan, four of its 12 casinos
online betting in the Unit- that total, with their In- will begin operating in cently agreed to partici- went out of business. But
ed States. ternet gambling revenue New Jersey in the first half pate. for those that remain, In-
Online gambling revenue up 17.6 percent from the of 2016, and many indus- From a legal and con- ternet gambling often
is increasing in at least two same period last year. try executives expect it to sumer protection stand- makes the difference be-
of the three states that Delaware won $1.4 mil- grow the market, though point, Internet gambling tween an up or a down
currently offer it - New Jer- lion in fiscal year 2014; how much remains to be has proven to be reliable month.
sey and Delaware. The
third, Nevada, doesn’t In this Nov. 26, 2013 photo, Jon Hernandez chooses from several games of online poker from his home in Roselle Park, N.J., the
report Internet revenue day after New Jersey began offering Internet gambling statewide.
separately.
But a hoped-for wave of Associated Press
expansion has not hap-
pened as many states sit $1.8 million in 2015, and seen. In March, Morgan and transparent, said Da- “The market was smaller
on the sidelines and as- $500,000 so far this fiscal Stanley cut its estimate vid Rebuck, New Jersey’s than a lot of people pre-
sess the costs and benefits year, which runs from July of the potential U.S. Inter- top gambling regulator. dicted, but the market
of the nascent industry. through June. net gambling market by Technology to ensure a is growing pretty nicely
“Internet gambling reve- Nevada stopped report- nearly half, pegging it at player is actually within now,” said Tom Ballance,
nue in Delaware, Nevada ing Internet gambling rev- $2.7 billion by 2020, down the state’s borders have president of the Borgata,
and New Jersey badly enue as a separate item from an initial estimate of reduced false rejections Atlantic City’s top casino
missed initial forecasts, at the end of 2014. Online $5 billion. - initially a problem - to a and its leading online win-
which themselves were poker, the only brand of At first, one of the main negligible issue. And it’s ner.
overly aggressive,” said online gambling Nevada impediments to people keeping most outsiders Internet gambling has
Chris Krafcik, research di- offers, is just a drop in the getting online to gamble from gambling illegally: generated $6 million in
rector for Gambling Com- bucket of the state’s $11 was funding their ac- only two people were earnings for the Borgata
pliance, which tracks billion gambling market. counts. Many credit cards found to have success- over the first three quar-
gambling legislation na- Online poker is the most wary of running afoul of a fully placed bets from ters of this year, Ballance
tionwide. popular form of Internet law banning banks from outside New Jersey since said.
New Jersey Gov. Chris gambling, although the funding illegal Internet 2013, Rebuck said. Of- “In Atlantic City, $6 mil-
Christie’s administration, small number of states bets were reluctant to ficials confiscated the lion in profit is not easy to
for example, had initially offering it has kept prize process transactions, but money in their accounts, come by,” he said. “We’ll
estimated Internet gam- pools low. New Jersey that has changed. New totaling about $1,000. take that anytime.”q
bling would bring in $1
billion in its first year. It did
about 12 percent of that.
“The negative P.R. that
resulted, fair or not, really
took the wind out of the
expansionary sails,” Kraf-
cik said.
San Francisco-based
Gambling Compliance
predicts either California
or Pennsylvania will ap-
prove Internet gambling
next year, followed by
New York and Mississippi in
subsequent years. In 2016,
the group projects, nine
states will consider legal-
izing it, though not neces-
sarily act to approve it.
The industry still faces some
nagging issues, as well as
looming threats - includ-
ing an effort in Congress
to ban Internet gambling
nationwide. The Restora-
tion of America’s Wire Act
has been introduced in
both chambers this year,
backed by billionaire ca-
sino mogul Sheldon Adel-
son, and could come up
for a hearing next month.
New Jersey began offer-
ing Internet gambling on