|
Most Recent Online Casino News
Odds Are Good Online Gambling Will Thrive
The most popular online
poker sites, as compiled by CasinoCity.com, include PartyPoker.com and
Pacific Poker, based in Gibraltar; PokerRoom.com and Empire Poker, based
in Kahnawake, Canada; and Poker World Online Cardroom, based in Jamaica.
Meanwhile, PartyGaming, the parent of PartyPoker.com, is planning to go
public this week on the London Stock Exchange in an IPO valued at $9
billion. According to press reports, the company reported a profit of
$371 million in 2004 on revenue of $601.6 million. For the first quarter
of 2005, PartyGaming reported a profit of $125 million.
Observers agree
that the numbers are impressive -- at least for the leaders. "It's a big
business, widely distributed and badly regulated," says Wharton legal
studies professor Dan Hunter. Indeed, the proliferation of online
gambling operators such as the Gibraltar-based PartyGaming has opened a
host of public policy, legal and e-commerce debates: What is legal? Do
current laws on the books have any impact on Internet gambling? Can U.S.
authorities realistically cut off Internet sites that operate offshore?
Is it up to states to legalize online gambling?
"There's a lot of
concern about whether this is legal, especially when it's a form of
gambling that's accessible to adolescents," says Daniel Romer, research
director of Annenberg's Adolescent Risk Communications Institute. He
notes that casinos are limited to people over 21 years of age, and
lottery tickets are sold to those 18 and older. While some online
gambling sites check age, underage players can simply bluff about their
real birth dates.
Read the
entire article at:
Wharton
2005 Online Casino New
Archive
| 
