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New York (AP) – With Rhode Island Became the seventh US state this week to launch Internet gambling, industry panelists at an online gambling conference predicted Wednesday that several additional states will join the fray over the next few years.
Speaking at the Next.io forum on internet gambling and sports betting, several people noted New York And Maryland are likely candidates to start offering internet casino games soon.
And some noted that, despite years of difficulty crafting a deal that would satisfy commercial and tribal casinos and card rooms, California This is too big a market to offer internet gambling.
“Some dreams haven’t been fulfilled, which creates some opportunities,” said Rob Heller, CEO of Spectrum Gaming Capital.
Before online casino games went live in Rhode Island on Tuesday, only six US states offered them: New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan and West Virginia, Nevada offers internet poker but not online casino games.
West Virginia state representative and chairman of a national group of legislators from gambling states Sean Fluharty listed New York and Maryland as the most likely states to add Internet gambling soon.
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He was joined in that assessment by Fanatics Betting & Gaming’s Vice President of Government Affairs and former Michigan State Representative Brandt Eden.
Both men acknowledged the difficulty of passing online casino legislation; Thirty-eight states, including Washington, DC, currently offer sports betting, while seven states offer internet casino gambling.
Part of the problem is that some lawmakers are unfamiliar with the industry, Eden said.
“We talk about iGaming and they think we’re talking about video games,” he said.
Fluharty said he has “coworkers who struggle to silence their phones, and we’re going to tell them they can gamble on their phones?”
Some lawmakers fear that offering online casino games will reduce revenue from existing casinos, although industry officials say online gambling can complement in-person gambling. Fluharty said four casinos opened in Pennsylvania after the state began offering Internet casino gambling.
Panelists said the key to widespread adoption of Internet gambling is to increase the tax revenues it generates and to emphasize programs to discourage compulsive gambling and help those with problems. New York State Senator Joseph Addabbo, one of the leading proponents of online betting in his state, recently introduced legislation to allocate at least $6 million per year to problem gambling programs.
“If you tell them we’re funding things by passing i-gaming, or we can raise your taxes, what do you think the answer will be?” Fluharty asked, citing college scholarships as something for which gambling revenues could be used.
A bill pending in the Maryland state legislature that would legalize Internet gambling would impose a lower tax rate on operations that offer live dealer casino games and thus create additional jobs.
New York lawmakers have pushed for Internet gambling in recent years, but Governor Kathy Hochul did not include it in her executive budget proposal this year.
Edward King, co-founding partner of Aces Investments, said California — where disputes between tribal and commercial gambling operations have stalled the approval of online casino games and sports betting — would likely join the fray.
“It’s a necessity for a state the size of California,” he said. “Tax dollars are huge.”
BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt disagreed, saying that California likely won’t approve online gambling anytime soon, and that texasAnother potentially lucrative market, “has been successfully resisting this for 20 years.”
X, formerly of Twitter, follow Wayne Parry at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC
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