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Nevada Casinos & Taverns Launch Anti-iGaming Campaigns
By Jeff Osienya Aug 22, 2021 IndustryExecutives of casinos and taverns hosting gaming operations in Nevada have penned a letter to regulators to protest the idea of welcoming iGaming to the state. Here’s a look into what is leading to the internet gaming pushback.A total of 28 gaming executives in the Silver State have signed an anti-iGaming letter addressed to the chairpersons of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) and the Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC). In this letter, the gaming executives are advising the state and the regulators to think twice about the perils of bringing online gambling to Nevada.
The two dozen-plus signees comprise both top brass and low-level executives steering gambling operations in the Silver State – ranging from casinos in the Las Vegas Strip to small taverns that offer gaming services in rural parts of Nevada. Part of the letter reads:
QuoteIn your potential consideration of online gaming, we ask that you are deliberate in determining if online gaming is needed to grow Nevada’s economy, helpful to our local communities, and consistent with our long-established regulatory framework. Or will online gaming only benefit large corporate conglomerates, many without Nevada operations, reducing employment and direct investment, while increasing regulatory difficulty? Claims to the contrary are only offered by those with significant online and other interests outside of Nevada.
This letter was penned in anticipation of an NGCB online gaming workshop initially scheduled for May but was postponed. Instead, the Gaming Board opted to pigeonhole the workshop and first wait for the 2021 Nevada Legislature session to end in June. Part of the agenda of the NGCB was to discuss dropping the requirement of mobile sports bettors to register for their accounts in person. While the three-member NGCB hasn’t announced a date for holding the rescheduled workshop, the platoon of gaming execs has decided to voice their iGaming concerns anyway.
Online Gaming Will Eat Into the Lifeblood of Nevada’s Gaming Industry
The main points outlined in the letter are all expounding on how iGaming will devastate the strong land-based gambling sector that operators in the state have struggled to establish for decades. The four arguments underscored in the letter are:
- Nevada currently has significantly more physical gaming locations than any other state,
- Online gaming would undermine billions of dollars of investment in physical gaming locations,
- Online gaming will cannibalize existing gaming revenue, reduce jobs and economic developments,
- Online gaming will undermine the long-standing public policy and regulatory framework established in Nevada.
In a nutshell, given that the Silver State has more commercial brick-and-mortar casinos than all the other gambling-legal states in the country combined, iGaming will end up undercutting those investments. And the operators aren’t just making a case for their bread and butter as the casino sector in the state employs over 400,000 Nevadans, paying a whopping $19 billion in wagers to state residents. Moreover, even local municipalities and the Sliver State at large will potentially see a lot less of the $1.8 billion that operators pay them in fees and taxes.
The other case that the gaming executive platoon is trying to make against online gaming is how difficult it is to regulate. For the decades that gaming has been present in the Silver State, the regulatory framework has been super tight to the point of being dubbed the world’s “gold standard.” Vetting, licensing, and oversight of the casino sector are rigorous in Nevada. The letter asserts that taking things online will water down the ‘long-standing parameters’ that hold the industry together.
The one example that the top brass unit gave when talking about regulation was that iGaming would open the floodgates of unlimited online gambling, which could, in turn, lead to more problem gambling concerns. Furthermore, according to the letter, preventing minors from accessing gambling is also more difficult as they will have ‘instant access to gambling’ through a simple mobile device.
Coronavirus Changed Tides for the Gaming World
While some of the concerns in the letter are justified, it’s vital to consider that the Coronavirus pandemic changed the game for land-based businesses across the globe, not just casinos alone. iGaming served as a welcomed alternative to brick-and-mortar gaming facilities when they could not open because of forced shutdowns. Right now, given that infection rates of the Coronavirus have recently climbed back up, iGaming appears to be not only a practical but also necessary direction for Nevada’s industry.
Going down to the numbers, because of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the Silver State ended up recording the lowest Gross Gaming Revenue in about two and a half decades. With the Delta variant increasingly raising the alarm, another flat-out casino shutdown might not be out of the question.
Bigger, more established casino brands in Nevada, such as Caesars Entertainment, Golden Nugget, and MGM Resorts International, have already started making big iGaming bets in other states because they don’t want to miss out on the digital dollars. As the iGaming push and pull continues in Nevada, other states like New Jersey have embraced the internet-based vertical, and their gaming industry is thriving. For the Silver State, only time will tell whether the sector will accept the inevitable change.
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