By the end of this decade, will online and mobile gambling be legal from sea to shining sea? That’s the latest estimate put forward this week in a controversial piece from Slate.
“I predict that gambling will be broadly legal in the United States by the end of this decade,” observes Slate‘s Jon Nathanson. “It will start with online poker, which is currently legal only in Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware. But it will expand from there, both in categories of games and in geographic acceptance.”
According to Nathanson, the writing is on the wall for this inevitability. And the lingering roadblocks are not only clear, they’re surmountable this time, even for companies like Zynga that have tried but failed previously to make inroads in this market.
As the Internet goes, so goes the real world. In the long run, I don’t believe offline gambling will remain grounded while online gambling takes off. States like California will loosen their commercial gaming restrictions in an effort to promote tourism. A cascade effect will see state after state lowering barriers and courting casinos, virtual and physical. Overseas competition will make states, and gaming companies, work faster and harder to ensure their customers the best, most convenient, and most rewarding casino experiences.
“This all seems a little far-fetched today. (And I’m not the first writer to speculate about a coming casino boom in the U.S., nor will I be the last.) Perhaps the change will come more slowly than I predict it will,” Nathanson concludes. “Perhaps it’ll come a lot quicker. The one thing I can say is that it’ll come. I can’t actually bet on it. But when I can, I’ll collect.”
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