Is there a casino coming to your house?
All over the country, states are starting to seriously consider making online gambling more legally available. In New Jersey, an effort to allow state residents to gamble through sites operated by Atlantic City casinos was recently vetoed at the last minute by Governor Chris Christie. Nevada has been moving toward extending their state’s accommodations of gambling into the online world. Meanwhile in Iowa, Governor Terry Branstad said this week that if the legislature there passes an online gambling bill, he would not be opposed to signing it.
On the federal level, U.S. Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and John Campbell (R-Calif.) introduced a bill that would approve online gambling operations that were licensed by the federal government.
Tony Romm from Politico.com says this is all about money. States are looking for revenue sources wherever they can find them as they try to keep budgets balanced. Tony tells us that bills such as Frank’s and Campbell’s have failed in the past but may fare better this time around.
As for who would be playing such games and making such bets, David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, says you can start with social media. Some 40 million people play online gambling type of games on Facebook. If even a fraction of those people move into real money, it could be a huge industry.
Also in this program, Amazon opens Android app store. Apple is aghast.
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