US Set to make online casino and poker legal
Posted by Bev Freeman on 02 Jul 2009 at 09:07
The United States are set to make online gambling legal, in order to build a united online casino and poker setup in America that will be worth around $12billion, Goldman Sachs predicted in the E Gaming Review.
In a note to investors on Monday, the New York-based bank stated: “We believe it is logical to assume that the US market will eventually regulate – given the potential implications for US tax take, if nothing else.”
The dossier added: “Based on a simple ‘grossing up’ of PartyGaming’s rake relative to its 9% market share, the US poker market alone was worth $1.5bn in 2008.”
E Gaming Review added that that sum tallied with similar reports from H2, experts in gambling statistics.
Continuing, the report said: “Were the market to be legalized, we believe that the size of the revenue opportunity could increase materially.
“Based on an assumption of 30% penetration of offline poker players and $300 gross gaming revenue (GGR) per player, we estimate that a legal poker market could be worth $3bn.
“Were GGR to increase to 45% and GGR per player rise to $400, the size of the poker market alone could be worth $6bn.
“We also estimate that the casino market could expand to a similar scale, based on various offline penetration assumptions.”
Goldman Sachs warned that work on creating this online gambling amalgamation at federal level would not be quick, although progress in individual states could be faster.
EGRMagazine.com reported that the debate on this bill to rescind the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), introduced by Congressman Barney Frank, has been delayed until September.
Programmes are moving faster at state level, for example those which seek to make online poker legal in California and Florida.
The Goldman Sachs report finished: “The momentum at state level is clearly, where widening state budget deficits are ratcheting up financial pressures, is clearly building.
”Indeed, if California and Florida move forward with legislation to legalise online poker, this could prove the catalyst for other states to follow suit”.
The bank’s Goldman Sachs’ deductions echo those of the erstwhile PartyGaming chief executive Mitch Garber, now Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment boss, who, in an interview with EGRMagazine.com on Monday, envisaged that America will make internet gambling legal.
