Panel says New York, Maryland and maybe California could offer internet gambling soon
NEW YORK — With Rhode Island this week becoming the seventh U.S. state to launch Internet gambling, industry panelists at an online gambling conference Wednesday predicted that several additional states would join the fray in the coming years.
Speaking at the Next.io forum on Internet gambling and sports betting, some mentioned New York and Maryland as likely candidates to soon offer Internet casino games.
And some noted that despite years of difficulty reaching a deal that satisfies commercial and tribal casinos and card rooms, California is simply too big a market not to offer Internet gambling.
“Some of the dream is not fully fulfilled, which creates opportunity,” said Rob Heller, CEO of Spectrum Gaming Capital.
Before Rhode Island went live with online casino games 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.
Shawn Fluharty, a West Virginia state delegate and chairman of a national group of lawmakers from gambling states, named New York and Maryland as the states most likely to add Internet gambling soon.
He was joined in that review by Brandt Iden, vice president of government affairs for Fanatics Betting and Gaming and a former Michigan state representative.
Both men acknowledged the difficulty of passing online casino legislation; Thirty-eight states plus Washington, DC currently offer sports betting, compared to seven with Internet casino gambling.
Part of the problem is that some lawmakers are unfamiliar with the industry, Iden said.
“We talk about i-gaming, and they think we’re talking about video games,” he said.
Fluharty added that he has “colleagues who have trouble turning off their phones, and we’re going to tell them can gambling be done on their phones?”
Some lawmakers fear offering online casino games will cannibalize revenue from existing land-based casinos, though industry executives say online gambling can complement in-person gambling. Fluharty said four casinos have opened in Pennsylvania after the state began offering internet casino gambling.
A study commissioned by Maryland predicted that adding internet gambling would generate $900 million in annual online gambling revenue by 2029, but would cost brick-and-mortar casinos $200 million.
The key to broader acceptance of Internet gambling is increasing the tax revenue it generates and emphasizing programs to discourage compulsive gambling and help people with a problem, panelists said. New York Senator Joseph Addabbo, one of his state’s leading proponents of online gambling, recently introduced legislation to allocate at least $6 million a year to problem gambling schemes.
“If you tell them we can fund things through i-gaming, or we can raise your taxes, what do you think the answer will be?” Fluharty asked, citing college scholarships as something gambling revenue could be used for.
One bill pending in the Maryland Legislature that would legalize Internet gambling would impose a lower tax rate on operations that offer live dealer casino games, creating additional jobs.
New York lawmakers have pushed Internet gambling in recent years, but Governor Kathy Hochul did not include it in her budget proposal this year.
Edward King, co-founder of Acies Investments, said California — where disputes between tribal and commercial gambling operations have blocked the approval of online casino games and sports betting — will likely join the fray.
“It’s inevitable for a state as big as California,” he said. “Tax money is too big.”
BetMGM CEO Adam Greenblatt disagreed, saying California is unlikely to approve online gambling anytime soon, and that Texas, another potentially lucrative market, “has successfully resisted it for 20 years.”
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