Casinos Without Walls
Published: Friday, July 22, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
CASINOS WITHOUT WALLS
NY Times: "American position on Internet gambling is becoming an object
of derision"
The New York Times carried a major article on Internet gambling titled "Casinos
Without Walls, Or Rules" this weekend, covering the successful defiance
of Party Gaming to threats from federal authorities, and the more regulatory
frame of mind of foreign governments like the UK.
The well balanced piece commented that Party Gaming unusually included in its
prospectus that its Gibraltar based directors faced the threat of legal action
in the US due to that countrys federal interpretation of law that online gambling
is illegal.
But it quoted the Party Gaming view that the activity was not illegal per se
- federal prosecutors just say it is, and their opinion remains legally untested.
Although 90 percent of its customers are in the USA, Party Gaming operates from
Gibraltar.
The article traces the remarkable success story of the company to the present,
where annual revenues easily exceed half a billion US dollars and a successful
public offering in London has just been completed, making billionaires for its
founders.
It quotes US analysts, who predict that the total online poker market will mushroom
to US $ 6 billion by 2009 from only $1 billion last year, despite the uncertain
legal climate in the USA.
"The World Trade Organisation and foreign governments alike are siding
with companies like Party Gaming and against the United States," the story
continues. "Indeed, among international bodies and foreign governments,
the American position on Internet gambling is becoming an object of derision."
The author of the article quotes from the 2003 report by the British government
Department for Culture, Media and Sport saying, "There is a growing gambling
market for online gambling where national boundaries no longer have any meaning.
"Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the USA, where despite the
apparent illegality of cross-border gambling more of its citizens gamble online
than anywhere else in the world.
"To deny this appears in many ways to fly in the face of the reality of
international banking and the inherently international nature of 21st century
telecommunications."
The edition also carries stories on poker legend Stu Unger, Gibraltar and on
remote gambling from hand-held devices within casino resort premises in Vegas.
