“UK Passage of Online Gambling Bill Is Good News”

Many companies associated with the online gambling industry were delighted with the passage of The Gaming Bill, legislation introduced in the UK that will regulate the industry and make it a safer and more secure environment for online gamblers.

The Gaming Bill, legislation introduced and passed in the UK and intended to regulate the online gambling industry, is expected to go into effect in the year 2006. This is good news for those in the online gambling industry, who believe that people will be more and more inclined to participate in online gambling the more mainstream and regulated it becomes.

Chartwell Technology, a company that provides gaming software to online and remote gambling businesses, received the news happily, and its Chief Executive Officer Lee Richardson expects that various European countries may well follow suit. Chartwell, anticipating that this legislation would pass, actually has an office in London, and at the moment it is also working on developing its gaming systems – casino games, lotteries, poker and bingo, kiosk-based solutions – throughout Europe.

Passage of the Gaming Bill is expected to have a huge financial impact on the gambling industry – an industry that is already booming, according to reports by Informa Media Group and Merrill Lynch. These reports show that online gambling revenues are expected to exceed $14 billion by the end of 2006, of which $7.5 billion will have been generated by Europe. These figures were computed without even taking into account the passage of the Gaming Bill.