Well since you brought up the subjecy, I may aswell have my 2 cent worth.
Yes there will undoubtedly be a percentage of US players who will not be stopped by the ban no matter what, but there could be a much larger percentage of players who could or would like to continue playing. Despite the fact that that online gambling itself, in most cases, does not constitute a criminal act, nevertheless, I do not believe that the vast majority of players fully understand this and the prospect of becoming a “criminal” in order to gamble is not an option for many, at this point in time.
Those who do decide, to hell with Frist’s law, will need to overcome a number of obstacles before they can place a wager. Firstly, since the IT savvy may realize or unless we somehow tell the rest, that their geographical location can be loosely determined by IP address, they can fool the tracking systems by using numerous anonymizing applications freely available on the market. However, by accessing the casino by using this method will in all likelihood trigger casino operators anti fraud systems unless the player consistently connects via the same proxy or that the casino operator agrees and understands that the player is hiding his/her geographic footprint.
I believe that no casino operator with a brain in their head, who is located outside the US will simply discard the potential of billions of dollars in earning without making an attempt to reap in some of the rewards, even be it in a disguised manner in order to cover their backs. Which brings me to the second obstacle that the gambler will need to overcome. Banking methods. With Netteller in the middle of this mess, it would be advisable for players to move to Click2Pay and PaySpark who would seem to be incapable of, or hopefully disinterested in, implementing the requirements of the US gambling laws. I have no doubt that with Netteller having left a lot of cash on the table, we will be seeing one or two new institutions taking up the slack in the market.
The third and biggest problem the determined US gambler faces is, his/her address. Unless there is a friend, family member, acquaintance or business connection outside the US then, this is going to be the obstacle that trips up the wannabe US gambler. What we need here is, and I know it sounds far fetched, rogue and a can of worms (maybe not). address-abroad.com. A facilitator of an address outside the us. Possibly a company owned by the “clean” casino who simply connects the actual address details to the alias.
To conclude this posting, I would like to state that prior to the internet gambling law been passed, I had no inclination whatsoever to find a solution to circumvent any law but since Mr Frist and his cronies seem bent on the CREATION of felons, this is merely a natural progression in thinking for a vast number of previously law abiding citizens and only a minute example of things to come. It is a sad day when people create laws to create crime, which the vast majority of law abiding citizens do NOT believe should be constituted as a crime. Thus a new watered down way of thinking about crime is born that only the eventual abandonment of such a law can remedy. (on this point we may have to wait a while though)
Could be around 10/20% of the actual market?
Just give it time for a couple of enterprising minds to mull this thing over or to recognize this crime/opportunity Paradigm for what it is, and we will looking at 200% in the not too distant future whether it is against the law or not.