Party Gaming US Gamble May Pay Off
Written by RogerCP | Monday, August 3rd, 2009
When Party Gaming reached a settlement agreement with the United States to the tune of $105 million for gambling activities that took place prior to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, a few eyebrows were raised regarding the wisdom of such a move.
Certain analysts said that sites such as Poker Stars and Fulltilt still continued in the online poker industry, amassing a fortune in the process, and serving half of the ever growing market in the United States especially for that which was not a poker site accepting US players.
However, Party Gaming’s calculated risk may be paying off, especially if we take into account the latest statistics released by Poker Players Research, showing that the US poker market remains the largest in the world.
It was shown that there are now 10 million real money poker players in the United States – five times the second largest market, which happens to be the United Kingdom with 1.9 million.
With those kinds of numbers, you don’t need to be a genius to understand that you simply cannot make 10 million people disappear and at some point, the US authorities will have to face facts that Prohibition is simply not working and that a regulated and legalized poker policy is the ONLY answer.
When that happens, and the US authorities start issuing licenses, Party Gaming’s logic is that it stands an excellent chance of earning itself a license, thanks to the fact that it showed that it had stood up to its responsibility and settled with the government.
Party Gaming is hoping that the US will not take too kindly to sites who continue to flaunt the law or those, such as 888 Holdings, who have made no move to reach an agreement with the government.
When that happens, Party Gaming will be able to reclaim a nice chunk of this 10 million player strong market, it believes.
Only time will tell whether Party Gaming’s gamble paid off or not and whether it was $105 million well spent or not.
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· Written by RogerCP · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
