Column: Company aims to re-join lucrative online gaming market

Howard Stutz looks at the debate over the potential return of an Internet gaming giant to California:
You have to hand it to online gaming giant PokerStars.

Despite setback after setback, the Europe-based company won’t give up on its quixotic quest to break into the fledgling U.S. Internet gaming market.

After failing in Nevada and New Jersey, the new target is California.

But odds are PokerStars is once again drawing dead.

The company, operated by the Isle of Man-based Rational Group, is linked to three politically powerful Los Angeles-area card rooms and Riverside County’s the well-connected Morongo Band of Mission Indians.

The partnership wants to block Internet poker legislation in the state that bans PokerStars from participating in what many believe will be a massive revenue-generating Internet market that would dwarf Nevada’s online poker network.

How lucrative?

Morgan Stanley gaming analyst Thomas Allen predicted last week that legal Internet gaming in the United States will produce $8 billion annually by 2020. California, he said, will legalize online poker and alone will see $1.18 billion in annual revenue.

Get the Story:
Howard Stutz: INSIDE GAMING: Internet gaming giant tries again (The Las Vegas Review-Journal 3/30)

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