There is all kinds of speculation regarding a prospective US online casino industry, and while the US live casino business may have played their part in wanting UIGEA, things have certainly changed now. This massive US industry wants “in” in the “online” business; but one thing we can be certain of, if this ever comes about, the model is not going to be anything like it is in the UK. The fact that New jersey State is the first state to allow internet gambling in the form of online poker, may be a foot in the door. But there are a ton of restrictions to overcome, and whether this will make online poker a worthwhile business or not, still very much remains to be seen.

H2 have devised a model for US potential with regards a regulated internet gambling market, and have crunched all kinds of numbers for us. Remember these are predictions and assumptions based on computer models and much like computer generated models of weather patterns, no-one can tell if the model will come to fruition, unless it actually happens. They suggest a national gross win potentially of $22 billion annually provided sports betting is included in the numbers. This is projected to increase to as much as $42 billion by 2015. If they exclude sports betting then analogous figures are $14.4 billion increasing to $26.7 billion.

Additional research suggested that spend across all real money gambling online in the US, should be as high as $94 bullion during the first five years of regulation. This in turn, translated into FTE job years; adds up to a little below 159,750. Remember this is a five year period which creates an average of 19,420 direct jobs annually and 12,530 indirect, which means $57.5 billion expected income in domestic taxation. Excluding online sports betting from the equation again, still leads to a gross expenditure of $67 billion, with approximately 127,350 FTE job years and $30.8 billion in domestic tax.

They have taken these numbers and crunched them across the 12 largest US state markets, why not? Gambling is a numbers game, just like the job market and domestic tax income. The scenario points to the fact that regulated online gambling would be of benefit to the US. This study was to assess the complete fiscal picture in terms of the benefits of this industry to a US audience which is currently denied access in terms of UIGEA.

While research is often outcomes-based, H2 Gambling Capital is a leading provider of market intelligence regarding the gambling industry on a global scale. They are also regarded to be responsible for setting egaming industry standards. They have said that they used extreme prudence when forecasting this data and considered two “State Participation” levels. This is a lot of tax money, a lot of jobs and a lot to be considered, but whether it will cut the mustard and sell the online gambling concept where it matters – namely the US Federal Government, truly remains to be seen.