This week’s gaming and casino news comes from the floor of the International Casino Expo in London, England. Discussion centers around several US gambling news stories, from the launch of sports betting in Massachusetts, to the proposition of esports betting in Pennsylvania, to the push for online casinos in Maryland!
Hello friends, Jay Todd here on the floor of the International Casino Expo, or ICE as they call it. Arguably the biggest gathering of gambling professionals in the world. There’s about 35,000 people here from 70 countries from all over the world that have booths and are displaying their products. It’s all the newest, the latest, the greatest in the gambling industry. And we’re getting a preview of it.
First up, however, US gambling news. And of course they waited until I uploaded my last program before announcing that Massachusetts sports betting has gone live. I understand that right now it is only at three locations… all of them are land-based. But that online sports betting will open up, rumor has it, in time for March Madness… and they will have as many as 11 online operators. So, I’ll have to verify that follow up on it… and I’ll let you know over the next few weeks when that will be up and running.
Now, Pennsylvania has had sports betting for quite a while, but maybe maybe sports betting isn’t quite enough for that state. There’s at least one legislators there that wants Pennsylvania eSports betting. That is, regulate gambling on video games and the like. And if you’ve been keeping up with our show then you know this is something that’s already taking place in states like Nevada. So eSports is a growing trend, and we’re going to see more and more states, I think, taking advantage of allowing people to gamble on those a competitive video gaming. So, if you’re really good at some of these home video games, you know, hone up your skills… maybe you can go professional. Just sayin’.
Also, there’s talk of Maryland online gambling. And when I say online gambling we’re talking about full casino style games. Actually, there are two senators there that are working on legislation, and what they’d like to do is have it before voters by the year 2024. And since we’re talking about a variety of different types of gambling, let’s end this week’s gambling news in Virginia, where some legislation has unfortunately failed. There was an effort there to legalize and regulate casino skill games. If you’re a fan of our channel or you subscribe, you know that we’ve actually featured some casino skill games in the past. But that legislation has failed, and so hopefully maybe next year or the year after they will get that back up and running, and perhaps there will be a second state regulating casino skill games.
If you would like to see our interview with Michael Caselli of Clarion Events about the ICE Show, please watch the full video. And next week we’ll be back home in our studio to discuss more US gambling news and have new game reviews.