Page 105 - Casino City's iGaming Pocket Directory - 2013 Edition

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While growth in the online gaming industry has been driven by innovation, regulation
in the online gaming industry has been moved from highly progressive and innovative
to more traditional and less lucrative.
Part of that is the natural maturation of an industry. When an industry grows rapidly,
and generates billions in revenue, governments look for ways to monetize that
revenue stream. And part of it is the sheer nature of gambling policy throughout the
world.
Traditionally, the regulation of gambling had been the purview of individual nations.
Each nation took a different approach to regulating brick-and-mortar casinos. That
was acceptable because each society had different tolerance levels – social, political
and cultural – for gambling. And because the gambling industry generated immense
amounts of cash, and governments wanted to keep as much of that money for
themselves that they could.
That desire for cash manifested itself in different forms. In some countries (e.g.,
France and Sweden), state-run or state-protected monopolies controlled the gaming
industry. In other countries (e.g., England), it was high tax rates.
The early days of online gaming upset this paradigm. The borderless nature of the
Internet allowed punters to place bets outside their home markets, often at better
prices than they could find in their home markets.
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