March 12, 2010 (CAP Newswire) – California, Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois — these and a handful of other states are seriously considering legalizing Internet gambling within their borders to take advantage of the huge revenue streams that online casinos and Internet poker are generating.
Now Florida, a state that has recently been working to overhaul its gambling laws, online and off, is also drawing headlines because some key lawmakers there are calling for a legalization (and regulation, and taxation) of online gambling in the Sunshine State.
One senior Congressman, Representative Joseph Abruzzo (D-Wellington), is stating that the regulation of online gambling could generate as much as $600,000 a day for Florida’s economy. “This legislation is important to make sure the state receives its fair share of the online poker play that is currently taking place overseas,” Abruzzo told ABC News in Florida. “He filed a bill in Tallahassee to legalize and regulate online gambling in Florida. It’s first bill of its kind filed in the country this year,” the network added in an online article.
But the same problem for the online gambling exists here as it does in the other states that are on the road to online gambling legalization — namely, if they do regulate online gambling, they’ll only permit gambling through companies located within their state, or through companies that they hand pick, which probably amounts to the same thing. (“To gain a license, hub operators would be chosen by the state,” the ABC article notes.) That means that international brands like those used by most online gambling affiliate marketers would most likely be off the table.
Pushing online casino affiliate marketing to the sidelines would be a disastrous side effect of this new drive for states desperate for cash to legalize online gambling. So this trend isn’t a way to overcome the UIGEA; in a sense, if this trend is successful and online gambling becomes illegal in the U.S. only on a state-by-state basis, then the UIGEA will have been successful.
So, plans like Barney Frank’s push to regulate online gambling in the U.S. on a federal level, and even the online gambling regulation that would result if the “Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act” is passed would still appear to be better for the online gambling industry, economically speaking, and for online gambling affiliate marketers currently promoting international brands.