Could seven years of US online gambling darkness finally be lifting over European… well, primarily British, online gambling companies? Since George Bush in effect made their businesses illegal in 2006, banging up a fair few British businessmen on the way, the sector has been a shadow of its former frontiersman self.
Big personalities like Gary Kaplan, a New Yorker famed for his spectacular parties, ended up in US prisons. His British numbers man at BetonSports, David Carruthers, was caught in the net and also served time behind bars.
Arrest warrants are still out for some, like Isai Scheinberg, the Pokerstars founder, but the wheel of fortune does finally seem to be turning in the industry’s direction. So hopes Bwin Party, owner of PartyPoker, which was one of the biggest online casino group in the US before the ban. Shareholders and directors got fabulously rich providing games to the poker-crazy nation before the gates came crashing down.
In December 2011, the US Department of Justice finally said the 1961 Wire Act, the piece of legislation it used to clamp down on the expanding online-gambling phenomenon, only applied to sports betting, and not poker, casino or bingo. You could hear the cheers from Gibraltar – tax-efficient home of Bwin and others – to the mainland. Now, perhaps, US states, hungry for gambling tax revenues, would welcome them with open arms.
Well, not quite. Nevada opened its doors to online poker. Delaware too. But both states are tiny in terms of their local populations. And as the Peel Hunt analyst Nick Batram points out, visitors don’t head to Vegas to sit in their hotel rooms playing poker on their mobiles. Hardly an avalanche of opportunities.
