Online Gaming Set To Roll

From the Hartford Courant:

Online lottery ticket sales, online gambling, even online poker at suomi kasinot could become a reality if Connecticut lawmakers approve new forms of Internet gambling during next year’s legislative session.

A U.S. Justice Department ruling issued last week clears the way for the introduction of online lottery ticket sales and online gaming in Connecticut and other states.

The decision has Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, an outspoken proponent of the need to increase state gambling revenues, champing at the bit.

In an interview Wednesday with the Courant, Malloy said that under the decision, “it appears that [online] interstate and intra-state gaming is going to be allowed.”

“Everything is on the table,” Malloy said. “Nothing is off the table. It appears that the only thing the Justice Department has ruled is off the table is sports betting, with the exception of horse betting. So with that one exclusion, everything is up for consideration by the states.”

Gaming is an important part of the state’s economy, Malloy said. But competition is racking up on all sides, and online gaming in Connecticut might help plug some of the losses that have been anticipated by the legalization of casino gambling in Massachusetts.  If you want to take the casino experience with you on the go then you’re in luck visiting https://royal99site.com/.

Last month, after a four-year struggle, Massachusetts lawmakers legalized casino gaming. Although experts say it will probably take at least two or three years for the first Bay State casino to open, the drain of customers and dollars from Connecticut’s tribal casinos is forecast to be significant. Experts say revenues could tumble by 15 percent to 20 percent.

Massachusetts’ casino bill allows for the establishment of a single slots parlor anywhere in the Bay State, and three full-scale casinos: one each in the Boston area, the southeastern and western portions of the state.

Once those establishments open their doors, business is expected to fall off at Mohegan and Foxwoods. The two resort casinos draw up to one-third of their customers from Massachusetts, according to estimates by the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

The decline will not only cut into the casinos’ revenues but Connecticut’s revenue.

Each month Connecticut’s two tribal casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun pay the state 25 percent of their slot revenue to the state’s general fund. This past year, those revenues have averaged about $15 million per casino per month.

The new ruling adds another potential layer of competition. The ruling allows New York state lottery officials to proceed with plans to use the Internet to sell lottery tickets to adults within the state.

In late 2009, Illinois and New York lottery officials asked the Justice Department to clarify whether Internet lottery ticket sales would violate the 1961 Wire Act. The justice department ruled that the Wire Act was primarily intended to stop interstate sports betting.

“Because the…lottery proposals do not involve wagering on sporting events or contests, the Wire Act does not prohibit them,” Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz wrote, summarizing the justice department’s finding.

Malloy said a working group has been examining the state’s gaming industry. But now that the new ruling “clears the road for different types of gaming and participating in gaming” said Malloy, lawmakers will be able to explore even more gambling-related options in the upcoming legislative session.

The specter of Internet gambling has Marvin Steinberg, executive director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling, a nonprofit group, worried that online gambling could increase the number of problem gamblers in the state.

A 2009 study found that about 3 percent of the state’s adult population has a problem with gambling, said Steinberg, who said he believes the rate, based on additional information, is closer to 5 percent.

“We’re concerned with the amount of gambling that keeps coming along,” Steinberg said. There’s no question that the states will take the justice department ruling as a green light to go ahead with online pikakasinotsuomi gambling.

“I understand why the governor wants to do the things he’s suggesting, but my concern is that the states, including Connecticut, may be oblivious to the need for monies…for prevention and treatment of problem gambling.”

“There’s no question that the states will take the justice department ruling as a green light to go ahead with online gambling,” Steinberg added.

“You have to address the social costs beforehand…within the legislation. If we’re thinking about new forms of gambling, then put prevention and study and help for problem gambling in the bill,” Steinberg said.