Here are my thoughts on the most interesting stories in the gaming sector over the past week or so:
- New Jersey Moves Forward on Intra-State Gaming – Yesterday, Monday, November 22nd, the New Jersey State Senate passed S490, the succinctly-named \”An Act permitting Internet wagering at Atlantic City casinos under certain circumstances and amending and supplementing the Casino Control Act.\”The vote was 29-5 in favour. This bill authorizes Internet wagering at AC casinos; it would allow New Jersey residents and persons located outside of the US to place wagers on casino games by means of the Internet. All games that are permissible in a bricks and mortar AC casino could be offered over the Internet under this bill. S490 also provides for the imposition of a tax on such intra-state Internet wagering, monitoring and regulating the Internet offerings, and licensing fees. Now the bill will be taken up by the State Assembly\’s Regulatory Oversight and Gaming Committee. New Jersey has elections in November of each odd-numbered year, so there is still considerable time to see this bill through to passage by the Assembly. It is looking more and more like the legislative i-gaming action in the US for the next little while will be at the state level and perhaps not in Congress. [NJLeg.state.nj.us]
- Quebec Launches Government Gaming Site – Loto-Quebec\’s new Internet gaming site, www.espacejeux.com, went online last week. (It looks terrible, which is to be expected of a government-run casino site.) as of next week, Quebecers will be able to wager up to Cdn$9,999 per week on sundry interactive games. The poker offering will eventually share liquidity between Quebec and British Columbia, but only Quebecers are supposed to be permitted on Loto-Quebec\’s site. [Montreal Gazette]
- New Zynga Game – Zynga, the popular social gaming developer, released CityVille. I haven\’t played yet, but apparently it\’s SimCity meets FarmVille. It will go live globally in the next few weeks. More proof that Zynga (and the social gaming sector, more generally) are key things to watch in the gaming industry as we go forward. [TechCrunch]
- The Status of Congress – Congress is currently in the lame-duck session between election day and the start of the 112th Congress in January. Frank Fahrenkopf, President of the American Gaming Association and as keen an observer of the gaming industry in the US as anyone, said during G2E in Las Vegas last week that he doesn\’t see online gaming legislation passing during the lame-duck session, but he left open the possibility that Internet gaming legislation could pass. No surprise, but Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) thinks that, if anything passes during the lame-duck, it may be limited to legalizing Internet poker only: [Las Vegas Sun; Las Vegas Review-Journal]
- Las Vegas Cut-and-Paste Lawsuits – Righthaven LLC is a firm in Nevada that has sued dozens of parties over posting content on the Internet from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Some have alleged that Righthaven\’s actions have been abusive. Comes now Righthaven with an indication that it will narrow its litigation campaign after a Nevada judge ruled that a realtor\’s use of part of an LVRJ article constituted fair use. (The realtor reproduced 8 sentences of a 30 sentence news article on his blog.) See: http://www.scribd.com/doc/39767798/Righthaven-v-Realty-One-Order This is fascinating enough by itself, but the Nevada attorney who is a principal of Righthaven (Steven Gibson) is the same lawyer that is a member of the law firm Dicknson Wright PLLC, an international law firm with a respected gaming practice and now with a Las Vegas office. [Wired]
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Attorney Stuart Hoegner regularly follows international gaming law; you can follow him @GamingCounsel on Twitter.