Harrah's Getting Set To Take Gambling Online!

The world's largest gambling convention (the G2E 2009) was underway in Las Vegas week before last where companies displayed their latest industry technology and gadgets for the gaming world, meanwhile back in Washington, democratic representative Barney Frank was working on his legislation, HR2267 formally called the "Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act", which is a bill seeking to legalize and regulate online gambling in the United States. Not that it has been totally illegal for players to gamble online in many states, but there has been a large gray area in this industry ever since the shady, late night bill signing of the UIGEA, that was attached to the back of The SAFE Port Act as Title VIII of the Act in 2006 and signed into law by President Bush on October 13, 2006.

The act basically states that it prohibits the transfer of funds from a financial institution to an illegal Internet gambling site, specifically excluding fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse/harness racing. The problem has been though that no one ever clearly defined what the term "unlawful Internet gambling" really was. UIGEA § 5364 required that regulations be issued by the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury within 270 days of the passage of the Act regarding what procedures the banking community would implement to self regulate themselves as far as online gambling transactions are concerned. The final regulations were released November 12, 2008, and came into effect on January 19, 2009. Compliance was to be implemented into effect on December 1, 2009 but as recent as this past Friday Nov. 27th, the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve postponed the implementation date for a new Internet gambling payment ban for six months until June 1st, 2010. This should give our friend, Rep Frank, additional time to garner more support for his HR2267 Bill to be passed.

TheGamblingGuru has long been stating at the online casino forum boards that Harrah's Entertainment would soon be offering online gambling to their millions of patrons worldwide in the form of Interactive Online Gambling or better known as an "online casino". Well, back in May of this year Harrah's announced that it had established a new subsidiary company called, Harrah's Interactive Entertainment, Inc. (HIE) to manage the global growth of the World Series of Poker® (WSOP) and explore a European interactive strategy. Harrah's also brought on board former CEO of Party Gaming, Mitch Garber to head up this new venture as their new CEO of Harrah's Interactive Entertainment. Last week CNBC's Melissa Francis interviewed Height Analytics managing partner Andrew Parmentire and Oppenheimer gaming analyst David Katz to discuss what their thoughts were as far as online gambling soon being legalized in the United States.



As you could hear in the video above, both Andrew Parmentire and David Katz think that it is only a matter of time now before Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. (the world's largest gaming company) and many other land based companies will be live online with their version of 'online casinos'. As stated by David Katz, "Harrah's is keenly focused on getting this issue passed"! Harrah's Entertainment Inc. also recently signed a long-term agreement deal with online gaming group 888 Holding to provide Harrah's with online gaming services. 888's Dragonfish unit will support the U.K. launch of the World Series of Poker and Caesars Casino brands.

Legalized online gambling is coming soon to a comfortable seat in your home peeps! It will also be interesting to see how the land-based companies’ offer you comps and player card rewards when they do go live online. Will they also offer us the "markers" they currently offer when we are physically in their casino? Guess we will just have to wait and see. Stay tuned to TheGamblingGurus.com and check back often for further updates on these exciting new developments!

The Gambling Guru