Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | May 2011 46 which depend on poker ads. No reason to spendmoneyonPokerStars.net commercials if players can’t be converted onto PokerStars. com. That is probably the real reason for ESPN cancelling so many poker TV shows. Traffic on rival sites that continue to take bets from the U.S. has increased, but not spectacularly. Players do have their favorites, and don’t necessarily trust the other sites. Plus, their money is still tied up. Purely European companies, like Playtech, and the not-quite Internet poker sites are also doing well. PurePlay.com, a subscription poker site with free alternative means of entry, based in San Francisco, received $2.8 million in new funding after Black Friday. And Atlantis Internet Group Corporation, which is setting up legal closed- circuit computer linked poker on Indian land, saw its stock rise 400% in the last few days. Brick and mortar card clubs and casino cardrooms have seen modest increases in the number of poker players. The first weekend after the online players’ funds are freed up will show whether the crackdown on Internet competition can help save Atlantic City. In the long run it will probably be the largest landbased operators, like Caesars, and online siteswhich had already pulled out of the U.S., led by Bwin-Party and 888, that will be the biggest winners. The indictments reinforce proponents’ arguments that the states should legalize intra-state poker, so that the operators and their computers and payments processors will be physically here to be taxed and regulated. The major obstacle is political. The same political and economic forces that allow us to even talk about legalizing Internet poker also stand in its way. There is so much legal gambling in the U.S. that allowing one more form is no big deal. But that alsomeans there are well-established local operators who will fight to prevent outsiders from coming in to create new competition. Each state will create its own formula for extracting as much money as possible without alienating existing local operators. Atlantic City casino companies have enough money that there is no reason to open New Jersey online gambling to foreign bidders. In California there will be at least three licenses: one for a consortiumof the state’s card clubs, the same for its gaming tribes, and at least one for an outside operator who can bring $200 million cash up front to the table. Nevada casinos may want a federal law to prevent them having to compete against politically powerful local operators in 50 different states; 51 counting the District of Columbia. But the recent indictments and stalemates in Congress prove that the states are where the action is, and is going to be, until well after the 2012 election. © Copyright 2011, I. Nelson Rose, Encino, California. All rights reserved worldwide. Gambling and the Law® is a registered trademark of Professor I. Nelson Rose, www. GAMBLINGANDTHELAW.com. Preet Bharara, the U.S.Attorney in Manhattan Traffic on rival sites that continue to take bets from the U.S. has increased, but not spectacularly. Players do have their favorites, and don’t necessarily trust the other sites. Plus, their money is still tied up. Online Gaming