The grand opening of the MGM Springfield will be a big story regionally in 2018.
As we begin 2018, several news stories appear ready to dominate US online gambling: legal sports betting, online gambling proliferation, and eSports are some of them. In the space below, we list each major story which should dominate online betting news in 2018.
Before we begin, players should expect to see one last ditch effort by congressional allies of Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson to pass a Restore America’s Wire Act-style federal ban on online gambling. US Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina continues to be interested in passing such a RAWA law, while California Sen. Dianne Feinstein co-signed a letter sent by Adelson asking US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to ban online casinos and poker sites with the stroke of a pen.
Rod Rosenstein and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions are both hostile to online gambling. Graham and Feinstein represent bipartisan support for a RAWA ban. Such a ban might be nothing more than a distraction, or an attempt at bipartisanship, or a last-gasp attempt to curry favor with big donors. Thus, political games in midterm election year could see online gambling struck down.
If that happens, stories 2, 3, and 5 would not happen. I don’t expect RAWA style legislation or DOJ decrees to be made, but this is a wild time in American politics, so anything is possible.
1. Sports Betting Regulations
CBS News reported back in October that as many as 32 US state legislatures might seek to pass sports betting regulations in 2018. Others closer to the gambling industry are more conservative in their predictions, estimating that 18 states will try to pass sports betting regulations.
Whatever the number is, a lot of US states are going to try to generate revenue from sports gambling, if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) in 2018. Any land-based commercial casinos will want the added revenues, so they’ll lobby state legislatures to pass legal sportsbook regulations quickly, if the Supreme Court decision goes New Jersey’s way.
Of course, New Jersey has lost 5 court decisions on this case in the past 5 years. It is not a slam dunk that the Supreme Court rules on New Jersey’s side in Christie v. NCAA. If it doesn’t, then the sports betting story is a nothing-burger. Still, legal sports betting would be a huge story, if PASPA is struck down. One analyst said it would create the largest wave of gambling laws ever in the United States.
One underreported part of sports betting legalization efforts is the difficulty tribal casinos would have launching sportsbooks without giving up sovereignty. They would have to renegotiate tribal gaming compacts to maintain sovereignty status, so expect sports betting legalization efforts to go much slower in states where tribal gaming is more established.
2. Pennsylvania Online Gambling Launch
Pennsylvania’s various casino operators will launch their online casinos and online poker sites in 2018. The rollout of Pennsylvania online gambling could produce the long-awaited flood of online poker legislation we’ve all been waiting for since 2013.
Pennsylvania already generates the second-largest amount of land-based gaming tax revenues, behind only Nevada. As the 6th-largest US states by population, Pennsylvania’s online poker industry will be the largest iGaming operation in a matter of months. That could have a huge impact on existing interstate poker compacts, along with the calculations of gaming operators in other big states like California and New York.
Passage of the online gambling laws already had an effect on New Jersey. After years of shunning Nevada and Delaware’s online poker compact, New Jersey signed onto the compact within weeks of Pennsylvania legalizing online poker. New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement claims other reasons for doing so, but the ability to share player liquidity with a bigger states is a huge incentive for New Jersey.
If Pennsylvania signs on to the player sharing compact with New Jersey, Nevada, and Delaware, it would create a large player pool of over 25 million players. That is bigger than Australia’s population, meaning other big states might see the utility of also legalizing and regulating iPoker, while joining the interstate compact. If California eventually legalized online poker and joined the compact, you could see over a dozen states do the same.
3. New York Passes Online Gambling Legislation
We’re about to enter Phase Two of New York’s gambling renaissance: the online gambling phase. For the past two years, the New York State Legislature considered passing online poker legislation. In one case, it considered wider online gambling legislation, including online casinos and poker rooms.
In both cases, State Sen. John Bonacic was able to pass online gambling measures in the New York Senate. State Assemblyman Gary Pretlow was unable to carry the measure in the New York General Assembly. A last-minute push back in June 2017 failed to gain enough support, but Bonacic and Pretlow each promised to try again in 2018.
2018 appears to be the year when New York finally passes online poker regulations. It’s a way to double-down on its 2014 commitment to open new land-based casino operations. Those gaming venues, like Del Lago Resort in Tyre, are struggling in their first year of operations. Del Lago generated about $150 million in revenues in 2017, but needs about $250 million to match its projections and pay back its construction loans.
In short, Del Lago and other New York casinos need the boost. Online gambling provides a chance for those casinos — along with all the other land-based operators in the state — to reach New York City gamblers. It is inevitable that New York will pass online poker legislation, if not online casino legislation, too. See Pennsylvania below for the sea change such laws might cause in other US states.
4. Esports Betting Goes Mainstream
One effect of legalized sports betting would be legalized eSports betting, or at least the possibility of electronic sports betting being available in a dozen or more states across the USA. While casino operators might not devote much time to Unikrn and its competitors at first, they would when they realized such gaming would bring millennials game enthusiasts into their casinos.
It should be noted that eSports already is mainstream. Huge online audiences watch video game competitions on Twitch, while these videos eventually end up on YouTube. Twitch eSports broadcasts have the same kind of studio shows, play-by-play broadcasters, and color commentators that you’d find on any other sporting event. When live eSports tournaments are held, they are attended by thousands of rabid fans.
These events would become much more commonplace, if eSports was one of the menu of betting items at land-based sportsbooks across the United States. Esports itself would become more widespread, because of all the new venues available to host video game competitions. Such events would draw crowds to commercial casinos (and eventually tribal casinos), so interest would explode. All that might not happen in 2018, but the eSports betting revolution will start to gain momentum in 2018.
5. Online Poker Guaranteed Prize Pools Will Grow
New Jersey’s online poker guaranteed prize pools will grow, along with the prizes in other states. With the fast growth of the interstate poker compact, you could see guaranteed prizes double or triple in the next couple of years. This will increase the number of players who think it’s worth their time to gamble online in the big Saturday and Sunday GTD events. This will increase prizes more, which will increase interest more, and so on.
For a while now, the snowball has been rolling down the hill, but hardly seeming to pick up steam. That snowball is starting to grow larger, as it’s continues down the hill. We’re about to reach a stage where this metaphorical snowball starts to get noticeably bigger, and its speed gets noticeably faster. In the next year or two, you’ll start to see years of work by hundreds of executives, officials, and lawmakers begin to pay off.
U.S. Online Gambling Regulations
I’ll also predict that some dark horse state will pass online gambling regulations without much discussion beforehand. The list is long, including Michigan, which has been discussing online gaming since 2016, though it has a lot of tribal interests which might complicate matters (they want Greektown and MGM Detroit to be forced to wait 5 years).
Washington State considered an online gambling bill out of the blue two years ago, while New Hampshire suddenly discussed the proposition last year.
Something will happen with online betting and few will expect or predict it. Everyone from Morgan Stanley to Eiler & Krejcik have made big predictions on online gambling in the past 5 years, with little to show for it. The cascade of legislation is about, and some state beyond the usual suspects will join in the fun.
