May 28, 2010 (CAP News Wire) – As the iGaming SuperShow winds down to a conclusion in Prague, the CAP News page takes its weekly look at the growing coverage of the online gambling industry in the international mainstream media.
Admittedly, most of this coverage is in the U.S. and UK press, and most of it in business publications. But since that’s where most online gamblers live, and that’s where most online casino affiliate marketers operate, and that’s where online gambling regulations are most badly needed (in the U.S., anyway), it can only be seen as a good thing that the issue is finally generating big headlines in the places it should.
Last week, we saw a huge growth in coverage of the online gambling regulatory drive, thanks to last week’s House of Representatives hearing on the possibility of taxing Internet casinos and online poker. That coverage has easily spilled over into this past week, as many news sources continue to explore the issues brought up in last week’s hearing (including the Las Vegas Sun’s recent sobering look at what taxation of the Internet gambling industry would actually mean, as covered yesterday at the CAP News page).
Perhaps most surprising: Conservative news site Fox Business has published an editorial supporting Barney Frank’s drive to legalize online gambling. The Fox News empire traditionally has few positive words for Rep. Frank (to put it mildly). So an enthusiastically supportive article called “Go Barney Frank!” almost comes off as comedy — but it’s for real.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on the presence of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) at the Washington state Supreme Court this week, there with supporters “to protest the law that makes on-line gambling a felony”.
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek has reported that Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer ha shifted his position from pro-UIGEA to pro-online gambling. A year ago, this kind of story certainly wouldn’t have appeared in the pages of such a high-profile business journal.
“Blumenauer released a statement Wednesday saying the U.S. is missing out on a major revenue source at a time when it must control deficits and create jobs,” the article states.
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek also has an interesting story (reprinted from the UK’s The Independent) about how online gambling companies are preparing for a possible overturning of the UIGEA.
And hHere’s a list of additional stories from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reuters, The Hill, the Baltimore City Paper, the Times of Malta, Southern California Public Radio, and Idaho’s Spokesman-Review.