I am a morning person. I love to work in the mornings. I know that sounds strange but it's true. My mind works best first thing in the morning and conks out on me at about 5p. Right now it's 6:04p, this is my third to last article for work, and my brain is on stand-by.

I still get my daily dose of Google Alerts informing me of everything new in the industry. One of the alerts I requested was for online gaming stocks. Back in the day this alert would be filled with information on 888.com or PartyGaming or BetonSports or any number of other internet gambling businesses which are traded on AIM (the London Small Stock Exchange). Now it's filled with information on video games that I've never heard of and have nothing to do with gambling.

I've also been without 70% dark chocolate with almonds for a few days and am starting to have serious withdrawal.

I'm not the only one feeling out of sorts. According to the Associated Press and Gaming Wire the entire industry is feeling out of it in the United States. The Global Gaming Expo was in Las Vegas this past week and internet gambling, once a big part of the convention, was just a blip on the radar this time around.

Alex Pratt (what an unfortunate name – and if you don't understand why find someone who is British and ask them) publishes iGaming Business magazine. His small folding table was pushed off to a far corner of the conference left for Internet gambling companies. "It was looking like it was going to be a really good show," said Pratt from behind several stacks of unopened magazines. "Then it sort of dawned on us, and the industry, they are not going to take (Internet) gaming lightly. It is a funny time at the moment."

Funny, as in perilous. Even if Internet gambling was a huge industry before being shot in the back by US Congress it's now a leper as far as US business is concerned. No one seems to care about the huge gaping loophole in the anti-internet gambling legislation that allows for non-US based financial institutions to deposit into online casinos (such as all third party processors like Neteller and Moneybookers.) The fact that the 1961 Wire Act hasn't actually been changed or updated at all is being ignored completely.

Terry Lanni, the Chief Executive of the MGM Mirage (the world's second-largest casino company) sees the silliness of the whole situation. Especially the ludicrous addition of the anti-internet gambling law coupled with a non-related port security bill, not to mention the fact that the bill exempts horse races and lotteries, and online bets placed while on American Indian land.

"It makes no sense whatsoever," Lanni told gambling industry officials attending the trade show. "Prohibition didn't work, this isn't going to work."

Later, Lanni mentioned that he hoped Congress would commission a study into the effect of online gambling.

"We're looking even in the lame-duck session to reintroduce this bill with some of our compatriots in the House and Senate to study (Internet) gaming," said Lanni.

"We think it can be taxed, we think it can be regulated, we think it can be licensed," Lanni said.

"With the new leadership, with the Democrats winning the House and the Senate, we think we're going to have a much better opportunity to do that."

Of course, right now internet gambling is essentially persona non grata in the US gambling world, and at this conference in particular. The fact that numerous executives and non-executive officers of internet gambling companies have been arrested in the US in the past six months hasn't done anything to help the internet gambling section of the conference either.

"If I was a big guy there is no way I would come here," said Patrick Smyth, founder and editor of GamingPublic.com, an online industry publication.

Smyth, of Costa Rica, said he's worked for several online gaming companies that were targeted by American authorities.

He told colleagues at the gaming show last week he planned to leave the Internet gambling industry to work in alternative energy.

"I like coming to the United States, I like running public companies," Smyth said.

American Gaming Association (AGA) President Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., understands that the whole goal of Congress outlawing internet gambling will probably backfire. The honest companies which were good for players have now stepped out of the market, but the 2000 or so not-so-honest companies left will be the ones US players will have to choose from.

"The opposite is happening of what the proponents had hoped," Fahrenkopf said. "The responsible Internet gambling sites are getting out of doing business with American players. There are still 2,000 or so other gambling sites still out there."

Fahrenkopf said the Washington, D.C., based gaming advocacy group may try once again to see if Congress will create a federal commission to study the potential regulation of Internet gambling.

"Some of (the gaming association) members believe the technology does exist to successfully regulate Internet wagering," Fahrenkopf said. "That why we support a study."

The AGA proposes a study, a study which will waste peoples time and money as there isn't a chance in Hell that Congress will bother to look at it or take it seriously. Here's my prediction of what will happen: US residents will continue to gamble online, but they will go to bad sites and have horrible experiences. These experiences will cause them to lash out an internet gambling and then Congress will start to ban the off-shore companies via the ISP's, much like Italy did in the beginning of this year. I think things will get worse in the US for a few years. Then slowly people will get over it and in another 10 years or so online gambling will be regulated in the United States. Who knows what I will be doing when that happens.

Posted on: November 21, 2006

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