“Britain's leap forward into legitimizing online gambling”

The United States is drawing to itself all kinds of disagreeable results from the gambling mania on the Internet without reaping any advantages, and this is all due its obstinate tough stand and policy declaring gambling on the Internet as illegal. The United States earns no financial benefits from this wealthy industry even though Americans who wish to bet online still go ahead in the face of the law, while the government is still exposed to the ever-growing amount of numerous gamblers and the social penalties involved. The United States refutes all attempts to profit from this occurrence by monitoring the industry and making it legal even though the American market is easily the biggest one of Internet gamblers. Therefore, in the United States there’s no possibility of stock and shares for online casino companies. In contrast, shares in online gambling concerns are not just optional but in massive demand. For instance, shares in Sportingbet, an online gambling concern in Britain, doubled the preceding autumn after having purchased a major Internet poker site, and two Gibraltar-based sites and one London-based site are thinking about share issues in Britain. In addition, the Gibraltar-based online gambling company, PartyGaming is thinking about going into the stock market and issuing shares in the coming year, and this is the largest Internet card site in the world. It’s assessed that its value would be almost five billion dollars if it goes ahead.

That there is now a possibility to download gambling games onto your mobile phone is not surprising as the industry of Internet gambling is growing so fast. The popularity of PokerRoom.com, the first online gambling site to provide this feature and which set off in April, is proof of the speedy expansion and availability of online gambling. Even more popular and expanding at a rapid pace is the game of online poker. As cell phones’ minutes cost more than time on computers, this leads to a disadvantage of downloading gambling games to the mobile phone due to the cost involved. Investment bankers are awaiting the chance to take a bite out of the profitable new share offers of similar gaming sites, so the cost of downloading to mobile phones does not appear to deter possible investors.

If PokerRoom.com makes a decision to go public such an opportunity could be forthcoming. In the preceding year, Ongame, PokerRoom.com’s parent company got ready for an initial public share offering by posting sales of sixty million dollars. Two medical students in Sweden developed PokerRoom.com, and in 2001 the company began accepting wagers. From each bet three dollars are deducted, which is accepted procedure in the online gambling world, and in this way it makes its profit. PokerRoom.com is evaluated as the sixth biggest online card room, and some eighty percent of its participants are from the United States.

The future of online gambling sites seems very optimistic, especially with Britain’s expansively warm approach toward the industry of Internet gambling. The online gambling industry is about to receive a mantle of lawfulness it hasn’t yet quite enjoyed now that the new laws are being enacted by the government in Britain, which will make online gambling legal and make the monitoring of the industry simpler to perform. According to Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Selin of PokerRoom.com, the industry warmly welcomes the new law which will award a mantel of legitimacy to the industry and which will fit us well.