From Delaware Online – Delaware has posted its proposed regulations for Internet gambling. The document is 27 pages of dry legalese, designed to cover every possible option that a would-be licensed agent and provider could conjure up.
It’s pretty impressive stuff. But it won’t work. Not that there is anything wrong with the regulations. I’ll leave that to the lawyers and other professionals to decide.
It won’t work in the sense that Delaware is trying to contain online gambling. The state wants controls and safeguards that would protect the public and the state’s interests.
The dangerous word in those sentences is “contain.”
Internet gambling is part of the digital revolution. Just about everything touched by digital goes far beyond what its users imagine. This will be another disruptive innovation that changes everything. What we imagine today as forward-looking will be seen as pedestrian in a couple of years.
Delaware is on the leading edge of states toying with online gambling. It is trying to keep a share of the take it once had from a semi-monopoly hold on regional gambling. That is gone. Pennsylvania and Maryland are killing Delaware’s market. Pennsylvania is killing New Jersey’s market as well. Now just about every state wants in on the gambling business and its fabled riches. All kinds of barriers and controls are falling in an effort to get a bigger share of a shrinking pie.
The same goes with online gambling. Delaware is setting up rules. So is New Jersey, which also legalized digital gaming. So will Pennsylvania and Maryland in a year or two.
So much for Delaware’s comparative advantage.
