A@P, I am not trying to sell for SNMM. I am simply trying to gather the facts. I own a small portion of what I owned before Friday. btw, I am also not opposed to shorting. anything to make $$ (short of lying and deceiving) and I am in.
btw, "And, like other forms of e-commerce, online gaming offer opportunities for additional revenue streams -- including valuable customer databases. The gambling audience is attractive to a host of conventional businesses, from travel companies to sports care manufacturers, according to Mark Hardy, who follows the online gaming industry at Forrester Research.
"From a marketing standpoint you?re always trying to qualify your audience," said Hardy. "There are attractive attributes to a gambling audience, just as there are to housewives who buy bleach."
Regulation of online gambling ? short of an outright ban ? would likely be a boon to the fledgling industry, according to Joe Coccimiglio
"If it was regulated it would grow much more rapidly," he said. "People wold be much more comfortable. How do you know the games are not fixed? How do you collect your money if you win?"
Ironically, while the Kyl bill calls for banning online gambling outright, it may eventually clear the way for state regulation and licensing.
For one thing, the bill demonstrates the problem inherent in tackling shutting down gambling sites altogether.
An earlier provision of the bill that would have subject online bettors to prosecution was abandoned. Enforcement of the ban would rely on Internet Service Providers blocking access to gaming sites. But the language in the latest version exempts ISPs if they find it technically or financially burdensome to do so.
"The Kyl bill has been watered down to make it more palatable," said Happel. "The general idea now is that it would prohibit online gaming unless a state proactively passed legislation to allow gaming in that state. So it passes decision-making back to the states."
Even if the ban is successful in the U.S., online gaming is expected to continue to thrive elsewhere.
"The business will continue to grow because it?s a global business,? said Hardy. "Essentially it?s a question of demand exceeding supply, and the marketplace responding." |
