Historically, online poker sites and land based casinos have been enemies: while online poker sites sponsor many live events, casinos for years have been involved in high profile litigation to stifle online poker. After Black Friday, most in the poker industry assumed a coup for the casinos, and speculated on how far back the FBI’s aggressive actions would set back the industry.
The unexpected support of online poker from casinos may end up being the result. The senior VP of Communications at Caesars Entertainment commented on the group’s now avid support of online poker, stating that the future of casinos depends on their presence on the internet. “Gen X and Gen Y make all of their decisions online. If we don’t have a significant presence online they will make different decisions,” she said.
Opinions across the industry are mixed, to say the least. TOPS-poker.org spokesman Kevin Hastings commented, “That’s the thing about dealing with US laws when it comes to any form of online gambling. There’s a strong push in Congress to legalize it at the Federal level so that the Atlantic City and Vegas-based casinos can swoop in and seize the entire market. It was a great plan for the big-money casinos to create yet another monopoly to line their pockets with….except that it completely backfired on them due to the timing.”
Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were the two most popular poker sites in America, by a stretch of miles, and between the two of them created more poker players in the past ten years than ever seen in the U.S. before. Hastings calls the FBI’s actions “ridiculous,” that these two powerhouses, generating billions in a new American market, could be “thrown out like yesterday’s trash.”
Mark Tenner, a partner at Concept Development Group, commented that, “The numbers of [online poker players] will continue to grow, which will have a positive effect on brick-and-mortar casinos.”
David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Las Vegas, said,”It’s time to shift this from a law enforcement prohibition approach to the regulatory and taxation approach. There’s not a state in this country not looking for some kind of tax revenue.”
Most major casinos supported UIGEA, believing it would force gamblers back to land-based casinos. Now that it has been very clear that opposite has happened, every casino involved is reconsidering its approach. “If that bill had been effective, you would have seen a big reverse, which you didn’t,” Schwartz said.