The AGA Has Reported That It Does Not Believe That The Latest Online Anti-Gambling Legislation Will Remove The Possibility For Casinos Based in the United States to Set Up Online Sites.

There is speculation growing that the recent legislation which is designed to discourage online gambling by making financial transactions by U.S. players illegal, will not affect American land based casinos in their desire to set up their own online companies.

Online gambling is a $13 billion industry in the business worldwide.  Of that $13 billion, almost half of that or $6 billion, is believed to come from gamblers gambling in the United States.  This remains a very tempting market and it is likely that non-American offshore companies that are backing away from dealing with U.S. players will make for a very favorable opportunity for U.S.-based companies that can deal with U.S. politicians.

There are provisions that were not placed in Senator Frist’s late night legislative attack that took place over the weekend.  These provisions can actually make for hope.  That is because their absence means that betting at online casinos in such games as poker and blackjack have not explicitly been discouraged.  What the bill does do is to make it illegal for financial institutions to accept illegal bets, and what we are left with is the unanswered questions as to if it is not possible that some form of online gambling might be permitted.  At this point in time, there is really only one specific explicit form of gambling that is being outlawed, and that is sports betting.

The American Gaming Association is a lobby for U.S.-based land casinos and that industry has taken a neutral position with regard to the bill in spite of the fact that several of the association members, one example being MGM Mirage, have themselves said that they would like to begin operating online websites for gambling.

Frank Fahrenkopf who is the CEO of AGA and also its president, has been quoted as saying that AGA does not believe that this latest legislation takes away the possibility for casinos located in America to open online gambling sites, that would be regulated by each individual state or by the federal government, in the future.  Fahrenkopf is quoted as saying that the bill does not in fact really make anything legal or illegal.  He says that what it has done is to affect the mechanisms that allow Internet gambling to take place.  And in addition to that, there is still a question as to whether or not the legislation will be effective.

The AGA has announced that he would support the idea of setting up a bi-partisan congressional commission that would be assigned the task of studying and reporting back to the Congress on Internet gambling.  This is something that was proposed not only by Rep. Connors but also by John Porter who is a Nevada congressmen who introduced a proposal like this last May.

The intent is that a commission of this type would be set up to determine if online gambling sites that are run by United States companies could be effectively regulated.  Fahrenkopf has said that he believes that a bill such as this is expected to be considered in the early part of next year.  He says that such a bill would be backed by land based casinos in the United States which will continue to support it.

Trevor Kolego who is congressmen Porter’s legislative director, says that it is still the congressmen’s intent to move ahead with this bill.  He says that they hope to see it passed and if not by the end of this session, then by the end of the following session.

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