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There is much talk this week about legalizing online gambling and in particular sports betting, which would account for a $30.6 billion figure as part of a PriceWaterHouseCoopers 2007 industry forecast. Another 21.4 billion in revenue would be generated from legalized online poker and Internet casino gambling, respectively.
"This analysis further illustrates that the U.S. is missing the opportunity to collect billions of dollars in federal revenues," said Jeffrey Sandman, spokesman for the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. "We are optimistic that the Obama Administration and Congress will pay closer attention to this issue as they seek to find new revenues that can be generated without raising taxes for critical federal, state and local government programs. Regulation is also needed to ensure there are safeguards to protect against compulsive and underage gambling, money laundering, fraud and identity theft."
A handful of states are looking to legalize online sports betting including Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Florida while others are seeking to have online poker legalized including California and quite possibly Texas now. Gambling911.com was unaware of any states looking to legalize both activities together.
California, facing an economic crisis, will be holding a poker summit on May 19 and 20. A bill related to legalized online poker in California was anticipated to be introduced in the coming weeks.
That state alone is estimated to have 1.5 million poker players.
Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
