As US sports bets boom, internet gambling is slow to expand
While two-thirds of the country now offers legal sports betting, only six states offer online casino gambling, confounding industry hopes that the rapid growth of sports betting would also bring internet casino wagering along with it.
Speaking Wednesday at the East Coast Gaming Congress in Atlantic City, industry executives and legislators from gambling states offered various explanations for why internet gambling has yet to expand beyond a handful of eastern states.
Internet gambling is legal in New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia; Nevada offers online poker but not casino games.
By contrast, 33 states plus Washington, D.C. offer legal sports betting.
“It's a mystery to me why we have 30 or so states that have sports wagering, and only six that allow I-gaming,” said Lloyd Levenson, an attorney who represents many Atlantic City casino companies. “You have to scratch your head as to why.”
Shawn Fluharty, the minority whip of the Werst Virginia House of Delegates, said the disparity is surprising because internet gambling brings in much more money than sports betting does. He said in his state, it takes three months of sports betting revenue to match a single month of online casino revenue.
Some in the gambling industry, as well as in state houses around the country, continue to fear that authorizing internet gambling will cannibalize revenue that would otherwise go to brick-and-mortar casinos — even though the experience of states like New Jersey has shown that not to be the case.
Internet gambling brought in $1.6 billion in New Jersey in 2022, up more than 21% from a year earlier. Atlantic City's nine casinos won nearly $2.8 billion from in-person gamblers, an increase of 9% from the
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