OPINION: The casino industry needs to get its own, on-shore, house in order

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 8:21 PM
  • Richard Schuetz, Casino Reports

To a degree, it was funny.

With the repeal of PASPA in 2018 and the subsequent rapid growth of legal sports betting across the U.S., there has been an increasing drumbeat against offshore betting shops taking action from people in the U.S.

The gaming industry’s lobbying entity, the American Gaming Association, often carries the torch in this movement. This group helped orchestrate a letter signed by several state gaming regulators to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in April 2023, imploring him to interrupt the U.S. trade with offshore books.

What became ironic about this was that on Jan. 25 of this year, one of the largest casinos in the U.S. was reported by Richard Velotta in the Las Vegas Review-Journal to be in direct violation of the AGA’s wishes.