June 1, 2010 (CAP News Wire) – Today, California lawmakers will formally introduce a new bill to regulate and legalize online poker within that state’s borders.
Yesterday, the CAP News page addressed whether such a bill — and others like it, as proposed by other states — would be good or bad for the online casino affiliate marketing industry.
But another issue is, what would such online gaming legislation mean for the U.S. online gaming software companies who are anticipating a return to legality?
In an article entitled “Can Online Gambling Save California?”, NBC’s Scott Budman speculates that a lot of the technology-oriented businesses in the Silicon Valley could stand to make a lot of money if online gambling is made more widely available to Americans, whether on a state or a federal level.
“Software companies like the Bay Area’s own CyberArts are watching the politicians closely,” Budman writes. “CyberArts, based in Berkeley, makes what it calls ‘Foundation,’ literally the foundation of online gaming. More gaming, more sales for CyberArts.”
That makes sense: The non-gambling side of the Internet gaming industry makes enormous profits for software companies worldwide. If the legal stigmas are removed from online casino games, look for American software companies to drum up big business making new games. (Which could also amount to big competition for the likes of Microgaming and Cryptologic.)