How Gambling Becomes a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry – Online betting only started in the 1990s, but it didn’t take long for it to become a multi-million dollar venture. The catalyst for the explosion in online gaming came in 1994, when the government of Antigua Barbuda, an island nation in the Caribbean, passed a law allowing casinos to operate from their country.
Naturally, many people saw this as a great opportunity, and two of them, Andrew and Mark Rivkin, formed a company called Cryptologic to write software that would enable the safe handling of finances in online gambling with unparalleled encryption practices. Other major companies include those formed in 1994: Microgaming. Data HK
How Gambling Becomes a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry
Cryptologic and Microgaming are the two leading companies as far as gaming technology goes. Cryptologic was the first to impact a fully operational gaming platform with electronic money account management. By the end of 1996, InterCasino was up and running on the website – one of the first online casinos. It wasn’t long after that online casinos became a multi-million dollar industry. It wasn’t long after that it developed into a multi-billion dollar industry.
In 1997, Microgaming released Cash Splash, the first online progressive slot game. Today, players from the US make up a large part of the online betting population, and this fact caught the attention of Senator John Kyl (R-AZ), who began drafting various legislation plans to stop people gambling online. The first, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, did not pass, and Americans continued their romantic relationship with online betting. Data Sdy
Other world players who took the internet casino train during the late 1990s included Argentina, and the British territories of Gibraltar and the Isle of Man, which started online sports betting websites. In 2001, the British Channel Islands legalized online betting, and later that year, there was an impulse to legalize internet betting in the United Kingdom as a whole.
In 2005, the UK Gambling Act was passed, and it was a boon for the internet casino industry. Subsequent legislation established the UK Gambling Commission to oversee all enforcement of provisions for licensing online gaming websites, discourage underage gambling, and ensure software fairness accreditation and monthly payment content reporting. The Commission includes investigating and prosecuting illegal gambling and is essentially a very comprehensive online betting regulatory body. UK internet betting control is now seen as a model for other countries looking to adjust online gambling.
In October 2006, US legislators tried to effect legislation ending online betting by Americans with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), adding the bill to a “must-pass” bill against Port Security that aims to combat global terrorism, claims that online betting proceeds are used by offshore companies to finance terrorism.
But before the enforcement of this law came into effect, a new law was created that allowed US citizens to participate in online gaming. Although it has passed the committee, there is no guess as to when or whether it will be passed by the House and Senate. That means that right now, US online gamblers are in a legal gray area, despite growing public sentiment behind the full legalization of online gambling in the US.
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