ONLINE-OFFLINE GAMING
Country by country
Attitudes to online gambling vary throughout the world, much as they
do to land-based casinos. Here’s the situation in some of the globe’s major markets:
Argentina: online gaming permitted. Australia: online gaming currently banned, but likely to be legalised
soon. Brazil: no casinos permitted, online or offline. Canada: online gaming legal, but under control of provincial
governments. Loto-Quebec, BC Lottery and Atlantic Lottery are working together on a project that should make online Poker available by the end of the year.
China: online gaming illegal. India: first online gaming licences now being granted.
Italy: online gaming permitted, and the country is becoming more and more liberal on gambling regulation. Japan: most forms of gambling illegal, but there are murmurs about
liberalisation. Mexico: online gaming permitted. South Korea: online gaming illegal, but common.
UK: online gaming legal and believed to account for about 12 percent of all gaming.
U.S.: the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act 2006 effectively closed down online gaming in the country but many Americans still gamble on offshore Websites – to the tune of $5.9bn a year – and there have been repeated attempts to re-open the domestic market. That’s widely expected in the industry to happen, although not soon. The U.S. land-based sector’s lobbying group representing major
casino operators and their suppliers, the American Gaming Association (AGA), has now given its endorsement to the concept of legalising online; after a long period of neutrality on the issue, it came to the conclusion that any cannibalisation of land-based revenue by online operators had probably already taken place, and also recognised the potential for land-based firms to go online themselves. “It might even become a new profit centre for some of our members,” AGA President and CEO Frank J. Fahrenkopf said. “The dynamic for the large companies is certainly changing.”
The outlook: Happy regulators are not the only necessity for online gaming to thrive. A recent report from KPMG identifies other prerequisites as “solid infrastructure of broadband Internet connectivity, easy access to mobile applications, and safe and secure payments through a native banking system”. And one commentator believes that legalisation everywhere may be an
unrealistic expectation. “With the exception of the offshore jurisdictions, not one government is warming toward Internet gambling. They fear it and their response to it has been negative,” says Warwick Bartlett of Global Betting & Gaming Consultants.
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