The battle to legalize online gaming broke ground in two new areas of the world: Illinois and Thailand. That’s where we’ll start our weekly casino news roundup.
Illinois Enters Online Casino Discussion
Many places in the United States are discussing legalizing online gambling and Illinois is a new state entering the fray. As you might have heard, the state is in the midst of an extreme budget crisis and they need money in the worst way. This week, the House Executive Committee will get together to vote on a bill that will cover the legalization and regulation of online casinos, as well as online poker and Daily Fantasy Sports.
There has already been a bill that had gone through the Senate in May, but the House didn’t really do anything about it and now they’ll reconvene to discuss it. The House is going to look at how much revenue they can bring in by legalizing online casinos and how much it will help their budget shortfall. If they deem it a solution, they’ll then look at what they can do to regulate it.
Thailand Could Legalize Online Gaming In 2018
Thailand looks like they’ll be legalizing online gaming in 2018. That is, assuming their election goes according to plan. Next year, they’ll have a general election and reports have surfaced that legalizing casinos could be one of the first key decisions made by the new government. As you may recall, previous governments cracked down hard on land-based casinos – and all types of gambling – because there were high levels of corruption. Right now, you can’t even have more than 120 playing cards in your possession without a permit.
After the crackdown a number of bordering countries saw their casino revenues spike. Specifically, the small town of Poipet in Cambodia, which is right on the border with Thailand. The gambling crackdown didn’t stop gambling; players just found a place to do it. The government in Thailand now sees what they’re missing out on and plans to create legislation to give the people what they want and give the country an opportunity to make some money.
Breakout Gaming Moves Into Online Gaming
Breakout Gaming, a company that is based in Costa Rica, has announced that they’re going into online casino gaming. They will have more details at the Amsterdam Affiliate Conference which is coming up in a couple of weeks, but for now all we know is that it’ll be called Breakout Casino. The casino will have over 1,000 slots games from NextGen, Pariplay, Parison and Microgaming.
Breakout has already made a name for itself in terms of sports betting as well as eSports, fantasy sports and financial betting. Now they’ll add one more piece of the puzzle. This is a move that is going to get their name out there to a much larger audience and offer their customers one more outlet. Breakout Gaming has developed the online gaming platform from the ground up (as opposed to buying a betting engine), so it looks like this is a very serious move as they hope to make a splash in the casino realm.