Online casinos offer better value to gamblers than brick and mortar casinos. They do not have the overhead of a Las Vegas or Atlantic City casino as well as can therefore offer better odds and bigger bonuses. Traditional land based casinos attract visitors with glitzy hotels and fancy restaurants. In 1976 gambling was legalized in Atlantic City. Las Vegas casinos realized that they might need to do more to attract East Coast visitors than just offer casino gambling. This was the beginning of the Las Vegas Mega-Resort. The Mega-Resort caters to the entire family so that you can be a vacation destination. It now costs an approximately $5 billion to buy the land and build a resort on the Las Vegas strip.
In 1986, Foxwoods opened as a bingo hall on Indian land. Foxwoods added casino table games in 1992 and slot machines in 1993. Atlantic City was now within the same position as Las Vegas. They needed to offer more than just gambling. Atlantic City handled the problem the same way that Las Vegas did; they threw money at it. Foxwoods location attracted millions of visitors and they continued to grow through the 1990’s and also the early 2000’s until a downturn in the economy forced states to loosen laws regarding casino gambling. Today Foxwoods is the largest casino worldwide and their business is being stolen by smaller casinos. They have opened the MGM at Foxwoods in order to bring in top line entertainment. This again costs money.
The next phase within this cycle is online gambling. Online casinos are more convenient than any local casino, so no-one will probably open up closer to the gambler. When an online casino is losing business they also throw money at the problem. Online casinos do this by offering bonuses to the player, not with white tigers within the lobby.
Online casinos are run out of small offices with a limited number of employees. These offices will be in small countries with legalized gambling and limited taxes. The casinos pay licensing fees for the software that they utilize. You wouldn’t be able to tell an online casino from a telemarketing office just by looking at it.
The low overhead allows internet casinos to offer « Better than Vegas » odds and bonuses on deposits. How often does a land based casino match your first deposit? The competition for new cyber gamblers is fierce as well as the bonuses continue to improve. The problem is that online gambling is just not exactly legal in the nation. Why not? Since it is not taxed! This really is where the problems start.
The US Government has no interest in the individual gambler. They may be trying to choke the money supply. The theory is that once there’s absolutely no money to be made by offshore casinos they’re going to go away. Then either gamblers shall go back to traditionally taxed land based casinos or related web site even the taxing laws will change and the casinos which are paying tax will be permitted to open online casinos. Las Vegas has a brand new law that allows e-gambling in hotel rooms while several states are attempting to tax internet sales. Will this create the new « Atlantic City » for current online casinos? Will they figure out a whole new way of throwing money at the problem? The answer is yes and the cycle continues.