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Massachusetts is the latest state to consider legalizing online poker for real money.
“I think we’ve got an obligation to the people of the commonwealth to study the whole basket of (Internet gaming options) — including online poker,” state Treasurer Steven Grossman, who oversees the Lottery, said yesterday in a meeting with Herald reporters and editors.
The state is so serious about moving forward with this concept that they have formed an Online Products Task Force, which will be placed in charge of studying the pros and cons of playing Internet poker on the Web.
Individual states can now offer online poker, casino games and sell lottery tickets over the Web after the Department of Justice recently decided it will only apply a 1961 prohibition act to sports betting, thus opening the floodgates for states to take advantage of a multi-billion dollar revenue stream.
Casino operators and other operatives interested in entering the US online gambling industry will be converging on Las Vegas next week for the first ever conference devoted to this market.
“People who want to gamble online can already find a way to do it,” said State Rep. Daniel Winslow, a Norfolk Republican who’s on Grossman’s task force. “The concerning thing to me is that (current online gambling) is not regulated and there are no (state) revenues from it.”
The population of Massachusetts is approximately 6.5 million, which is greater than nations such as Denmark, Finland, Norway, Singapore, Costa Rica and New Zealand.
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
