CAESARS CHIEF REMAINS CONFIDENT ON INTERNET GAMBLING

Friday June 15,2012 :  CAESARS CHIEF REMAINS CONFIDENT ON INTERNET GAMBLING
 
"People will be able to play online legally in the United States in many places very soon."
 
In an interview with the news and business television network CNN this week, Caesars Entertainment chief exec Gary Loveman was again bullish on the prospects for legalised internet gambling, opining that online poker will soon become legal, with several states moving toward that goal.
 
"I can say with tremendous confidence that people will be able to play online legally in the United States in many places very soon," he said in the interview.
 
Loveman spoke about the anomalies in US legalization that have created a situation where financial transactions with offshore operators are illegal and receive the attention of law enforcement but, in almost all states, players are not committing an illegal act and are not prosecuted.
 
"Today we have this bizarre situation where it is legal for an American to play online poker for money using a game that is provided by an illegal offshore entity," Loveman said. "I think it is very hard to imagine why we would allow Americans to buy a service that no American company can [legally] offer."
 
If the federal government were to legitimise online poker, it would be able to regulate the activity and benefit from the substantial tax revenues that it is capable of generating, he added.
 
Loveman estimated that under a federally regulated scenario, the U.S. online poker industry could rake in $6 billion to $8 billion a year. If states did this on their own – and that appears the most likely deveopment at present – the revenue would be $2 billion to $3 billion to start.
 
The federal government would get about 15 percent of that revenue if it regulated online poker, Loveman estimated.