Home / Poker News December 2013 / Online Gaming Not Viable in Delaware?
Online Gaming Not Viable in Delaware?
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Tue, 2013-12-10 07:07
Ever since online poker/gambling has been legalized and launched in New Jersey and Delaware, there has been a lot of fretting about whether or not the industry would prove viable over the long-run and about whether or not it would end up competing with the brick and mortar offerings of the very companies running the newly set-up sites.
According to gaming analyst Brian McGill, the industry is indeed shaping up nicely in the Garden State and it is set to grow. According to McGill, online gaming will likely grow into a significant driver of revenues for Atlantic City – just as the initiators of the bill had envisioned – but it will definitely take some time to get there.
The estimates regarding the potential revenues have run a wide scale, from around $200 million all the way to $1.8 billion. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has estimated that online gaming would send about $160 million into the state coffers by July, next year, which is a revised prediction, off a $180 million mark, following a tax rate cut in the bill.
According to Senator Jim Whelan, one of the initiators of the
online poker/online gambling bill, even the revised predictions are much too optimistic, given the short time-span involved.
Whelan said he believed revenues would be under $100 million.
In regards to Delaware – another state which has legalized online gaming – Brian McGill isn’t particularly optimistic though. In Delaware, online gaming sites are run by horse tracks and the state lottery is in on the deal too. Despite that, there has been very little promotion thus far, and therefore huge numbers of Delaware residents aren’t even aware that they can legally play for real money online.
Everything accounted for, the Delaware online gaming market looks feebler and much less likely to turn over significant amounts of money any time soon than New Jersey’s.
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