Just to clarify, the basis of the article our author Bob Hartman wrote was that Yahoo Poker already exists and AOL has just started an online sports betting site, of all things, catering to UK players. So, his hypothesis is that once the US opens up the market it won’t be seen as an ‘evil’ or ‘dirty’ industry anymore, and if AOL and Yahoo are already doing it on an international level it goes without saying they would offer the same services to US residents.
The speculation on Bob’s part is that any big Web 2.0 site, already with extremely large bank accounts, will follow suit and because the software companies provide the software they don’t really need to know that much in order to start an online casino. The good part for affiliates, in my opinion, is that sites like Google and MySpace, for instance, would likely join an affiliate program like say Partner Logic, as Playboy has done.