Tag Archives: government
Ontario Lottery to Launch Online Gaming Site
Ontario Lottery to Launch Online Gaming Site
A second Canadian Provincial lottery may enter the internet gambling industry. Earlier in the year the British Columbia Lottery Corporation launched an online gaming website. Ste stated purpose was to provide BC residents with a safe alternative to unlicensed and unregulated offshore gambling sites. Some reporters were cynical about the move online because earlier the BC government condemned online gambling as a destructive addicting vice. The launch of the website was not without problems. The site crashed shortly after it was launched due to heavy traffic from curious BC punters. Actually the site’s crash shows heavy demand for safe online gambling. Early opposition was fierce from both political parties but the lure of the $100 million dollars spent annually by BC gamblers at offshore websites was too great for the BC government to pass up. The BC lottery is the first North American jurisdiction to offer online gambling. Unfortunately participation is limited to BC residents.
Recently The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation announced that it will launch its own online gambling site sometime in 2012. Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan pointed out that Ontario punters spend an estimated $400 million dollars a year at offshore gaming sites. Duncan stated, “Globally, Internet gaming has become a prominent trend.” Duncan said that the province has asked the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation to build a “socially responsible and secure” gambling website that would include consumer protections and “encourages responsible gaming.”
The move could help the Ontario Lottery increase flagging sales. The Ontario lottery generates revenues of about $1.7 billion dollars a year but recently the numbers have been declining. A government spokesman estimated that within five years the website could generate an additional $100 million dollars a year. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario is trying to figure out how to regulate cyber gambling to prevent abuses and compulsive gambling. Critics voiced the usual complaints and concerns, underage gambling, gambling ‘addiction’ and one politician made the astounding claim that all internet gamblers are ‘addicted.’
Despite objections the project is expected to go forward on schedule. Since the technology is already in place the Ontario lottery can learn from the mistakes made by the BC lottery when they launched their website. Hopefully at some point Americans will be able to join in the fun!
Online casinos financial report Vs land based casinos (Page 1 of 2)
In this article I will analyze these two industries, trends, regulations, profits and overall status.
It is clear that there is a battle going on between the online casinos to land based casinos. I took for example one of the biggest and strongest land based casinos – MGM ( $7.7 B) and one of the successful online casino company-888 Holdings ($1 B).
These companies are good examples since they are leaders and reflect the industry very well.
The war started a long time ago but I think it escalated in 2006 with the coalition of anti-gambling conservatives, together with Las Vegas interests and law enforcement which forced the government to ban online gambling.
Analysts estimated, at that time, that the amazing success of online casinos was over. Traded online casinos went down and everybody thought they were finished but it turned out to be the biggest mistake ever. Since then, land based casinos have been losing their power to online casinos.
Countries all over the world have realized that it is better to regulate online casinos rather than ban them because people will always find ways to gamble and to play the casino and banning them loses millions in taxes.
Take for example MGM
MGM together with Dubai world fund (which is a government investment fund. Its assets under management are excess of $100 billion and the revenue was $10.6 billion to in 2006) are short of funding in their $3.5 billion ( still pending) project “CityCenter” in Las Vegas due to the reluctance of the banks to give such a big loan to the project. German Deutchebank and Suiss Credit are among those banks.
The raising of finance for e $3.5.billion projects should have been completed
by end of June 2008. The cost of the project is $100 million a month.
“At present, no company in America has been able to borrow such sums from the banks” said James Maren, President of MGM Mirage in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Just look at the trading charts of MGM. Earnings per share went down nearly 50 for the last year due to a decrease in players and a decrease in earnings.
There are several reasons for this:
First, the economy is in bad shape, gas prices are constantly rising, inflation is rising and US debt is more than $9.4 trillion and rising $1 billion a month. The stock market is also not doing well.
Second, it has become very expensive for Americans to travel to Vegas. When you pay more than $4 a gallon, you don’t drive and you don’t fly, simply because you rather save this money then spend it on traveling.
Third, online casinos are on the rise and taking a lot of players from them. With fast internet connections, smart and sophisticated online casinos and huge numbers of casinos guides, you have everything you need you need to optimize your bet.
888 HOLDINGS
888.com is one of the successful online casino operators on the web. It trades on the London Stock Exchange; market value is about $1 billiard.