U.S. Tribes Eyeballing Big Dollar Signs At Online Casinos
Added: Dec. 30, 2013
The increased popularity of online casinos and online gambling is catching everyone’s attention, from the small lotto player to massive gaming companies. Not surprisingly, this increased popularity has finally caught the attention of tribal leaders in the United States.
You see, even though at this point online gambling across state borders is technically illegal, a few ground-breaking states like New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada have taken matters into their own hands and set up online gambling operations within their respective state borders. Since there is no federal law specifically prohibiting this sort of online casino, state Governors such as Chris Christie of New Jersey are already counting the revenue even as the online casinos within his state are still getting fully underway.
Now there looks to be yet another big player about to throw their hat into the online casino ring. What you want to be aware of is a peculiar twist of federal law. There is another federal law titled the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act on the books that authorizes Indian gaming on so-called tribal lands. Since this law was enacted, various tribes throughout the United States have set up almost 500 gaming facilities nationwide.
Yet up until recently, gaming officials from the various tribes throughout the United States have not been able to reach a consensus on what to do about the Internet and online gambling. On one hand, some tribal leaders are looking at increasing the revenue coming into their established casinos. On the other hand, some tribal leaders are strongly opposed to allowing any form of online gambling at all. Their argument is that allowing online casinos will only siphon money away from the land based casinos they have worked so hard to set up.
All of that aside, the money projections are just too big to ignore for U.S. Indian tribes. In fact, one California tribe, the Alturas Indian Rancheria Tribe is not willing to simply wait and see what happens. This tribe is working around the clock to formally launch their version of an online casino as soon as possible.
To make sure they stay compliant with federal laws and also to make sure the online casino gameplay only occurs within the tribal borders, this tribe has taken a high tech approach. Using a newly developed gameplay system they dubbed “Virtual Private Assisted Play System”, they can ensure all the online casino action takes place on servers located on tribal lands.
Is this the beginning of a new wave of online casino game operators? Stay tuned for more as this story keeps developing.