Some American States on Online Gambling

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Over the last week there has been news from some American sates about the intent on online gambling. However, actual enactment of laws is still a long way off.

Business Week has reported that the state officials from Delaware have moved a bit further in their exploration of regulation and licensing online gambling. They have held a series of meetings with representatives of Delaware's gambling industry. In these meetings the state officials laid out plans to expand gambling activities. The plans included the legalization of intra state online gambling, granting permission for more onsite venues for gambling and offering financial breaks to the three land casinos operating in Delaware. In turn they want the land casino operators to support their efforts. The breaks offered to the land casino operators was utilization of a part of the revenue generated from online gambling to eliminate the $4 million slot machine fees being paid by the land casinos and to cut their table game fees from $6.75 million to $3 million.

In Massachusetts, the Associated Press news agency reported that the second meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is scheduled for this week. The agenda includes tribal casinos and online gambling among other items. During the first meeting the Commission had decided to seek agreements with Spectrum Gaming Group and seek the advice of the law firm of Michael & Carroll for establishing casino regulations and law enforcement procedures.

In the state of New Jersey, Senator Ray Lesniak has said that he now expects online gambling to be a reality by fall. The bill proposed by Senators Lesniak and Whelan was passed by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee earlier this month. The vote on the bill by the full Senate is expected to take place on May 31. Lesniak has factored in the holidays and other absences of state politicians. He wants to be sure that the supportive Democrats are present in full strength and has therefore pushed back the voting by a few weeks.

According to Lesniak there are two factors that will assist in a favorable response from the New Jersey legislators. The first is the December 2011 announcement from the Department of Justice that the Wire Act would henceforth cover only online sports betting and not other forms of online gambling. The second factor is that Nevada is pretty close to putting in place a regulated online poker regime. It is important for New Jersey that Atlantic City has first mover advantage over Las Vegas and therefore the need to hurry.

With so much favorable news coming in there had to be something negative. Utah has already outlawed any possibility of legalized online gambling in the state. The state governor Gary Herbert has now written to Congressional leaders, urging them to not allow online gambling at the federal level.

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