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Electronic Gambling Report: Growth of Electronic Gambling4 November 2000Nov. 4, 2000 --Estimates of the total amount of business done annually by the industry range from $6 billion to $60 billion. $10 billion has been cited by one industry analyst as the most accurate estimate for 2000. A complicating factor in gauging the growth of Internet gaming is the uncertain legal status of the industry (especially as it relates to the United States), which may have cause many operators to conceal their financial situation and sometimes their identity. The overall lack of clear regulation also makes it difficult to determine how many enterprises are entering the field and how many are folding. For example, Antigua, which boasts of its strict licensing regime, has issued a list of seven or eight unlicensed gaming websites that were operating from Antigua in 1998. Further complicating matters is the frequent ownership or licensing (the relationship often is not clear) of multiple sites by the same corporate entity and the tendency to change site names or use variations of the same name in different levels of advertising. Online casino and sportsbook listings often give both the parent and the subsidiaries the same status, and often both levels have websites that seem to represent a single casino or sportsbook. An example is Casino Fortune of Trinidad, which apparently went from being a single casino to being the corporate name of several casinos, including one in Botswana, owned by a company called the Sunny Group. Meanwhile, Casino Fortune maintains a separate gaming website exactly like the other casinos. About 15 companies develop and sell turnkey interactive gaming software for Internet gaming operations. Their number is growing slowly but constantly. According to an IGC expert, the largest volume of such sales has been produced by Atlantic International Entertainment, Inc. and Microgames. Other major players are Cyberoad of Canada, Casino World Holdings of Antigua, CyberSpace Casino Tech and Handa Lopez of California, and Cryptologic of Vancouver. However, some gaming operators have established relationships with more conventional software companies such as Electronic Data Systems Corporation, the supplier of Global Internet Corporation, a Dominica-based Internet operator. Whatever the growth rate or current level of activity, it is certain that since 1997,those depending on the U.S. market have been substantially slowed by the uncertain legal status of Internet gaming operations in the United States. Major supplier companies such as Virtual Gaming of Antigua and GLC (formerly Gaming Lottery Corporation) of Gibraltar have formally declared that they will avoid direct contact with the American market as long as state and federal laws are interpreted as prohibiting the offering of Internet gaming services in U.S. jurisdictions.Australia' s largest online operation, Centrebet, terminated all U.S. commerce in 1998. |