Home / Poker News January 2012 / Online Poker Will Pass in 2012 – Says MGM CEO
Online Poker Will Pass in 2012 – Says MGM CEO
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2012-01-15 10:52
For James Murren, CEO of MGM Resorts International, the problem of regulated and legalized online gambling in the US is a simple one: he knows it will pass this year. The only thing he isn’t certain of is whether or not the game will be legalized on a federal level. In an interview with CNBC, the Las Vegas insider appeared extremely confident that the
online poker law would pass in 2012. He didn’t say it may pass or that he hoped it would pass. He simply said it would pass. He acknowledged however that federal-level regulation was still something of a problem. According to Murren, the time for stalling and arguing was over: if the federal government fails to act in 2012, the states will go ahead and take the initiative, and online poker will get legalized state by state, regardless of whether or not the federal government has a hand in it. The State of Nevada has already drawn up plans for regulation and it has already approved a poker law, which will be implemented later in 2012.
Still, federal regulation would be the preferred path on account of the enhanced possibilities it would offer regarding the protection of underage gamblers, fraud prevention and the elimination of illegal online gambling operations.
According to Murren, the DoJ’s new interpretation of the Wire Act has basically given the green light for the states to go ahead legalizing and even combining their online poker networks over state lines. The move also threw the ball into Capitol Hill’s court, placing pressure on the lawmakers to act or to be simply rendered obsolete on the matter by the speed with which events shall proceed.
Murren also said that once legalized, online poker would become a multi-billion dollar industry on a scale never before seen. MGM has already teamed up with bwin.party to forward its online poker agenda as soon as the legal green light is received.
