‘Closeted Skeletons’ Complicate Legalization of Online Gambling in US

Joshua Brustein of BusinessWeek.com wrote an article Monday dealing with what he calls the “closeted skeletons” getting in the way of online gambling legalization in the US.

He is referring to the likes of PokerStars, which ran afoul of US law in recent years and is now looking to forge a relationship with Atlantic City’s Resorts Casino to bring Web poker to New Jersey.

How forgiving the Garden State regulators will be remains unknown at this time as Stars is hardly guaranteed a license.

Earlier in the year, the American Gaming Association fought to keep PokerStars out of the US online gambling sector, citing the company’s past improprieties. 

Brustein writes:

PokerStars argues that its opponents are self-interested and their objections should be taken with a grain of salt. The American Gaming Association, after all, isn’t a good government group; it represents casinos that know they don’t have products to compete with those of the online poker companies, for now at least. By keeping a company like PokerStars out of the market, the old-school casinos may be able to buy time to build their own systems. “These are matters for expert regulators to determine, not self-interested partisans picking a public fight,” said Eric Hollreiser, a spokesman for PokerStars. It’s not clear why the company thinks it has a better chance this time around.

But as Brustein rightfully notes in his piece, you would be hard pressed to find a single online gambling company that has a “squeaky clean past”.  That includes the likes of bwin.party, whose PartyPoker brand long operated in America without the passage of legislation permitting it to do so.  888 Holdings did the same.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com