成人小说亚洲一区二区三区,亚洲国产精品一区二区三区,国产精品成人精品久久久,久久综合一区二区三区,精品无码av一区二区,国产一级a毛一级a看免费视频,欧洲uv免费在线区一二区,亚洲国产欧美中日韩成人综合视频,国产熟女一区二区三区五月婷小说,亚洲一区波多野结衣在线

立即打開
Online gambling for the Facebook generation

Online gambling for the Facebook generation

2009年07月16日

????U.K.-based Betfair is betting that the U.S. market will be legalized sooner rather than later.

????By Michael V. Copeland

????If your favorite book happens to be Seabiscuit, you already know the answer to the following question: What are the three legal forms of online gambling in the United States?

????The Federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, passed in 2006, put the kibosh on all kinds of online gambling, with the exception of fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse/harness racing. It actually wasn't the betting that was outlawed, but the transfer of money from a bank to an online gambling site. In any event, for online betting houses in the U.S., the party was over -- sort of.

????Online gambling in the United States still goes on -- billions of dollars every year -- it just happens via offshore outfits and offshore accounts. Strictly speaking, in ain't legal, but when you have a feeling about a big football game, or you have a poker itch to scratch, well, you'll find a way to scratch it.

????Goldman Sachs in a recent research note to investors estimated that online poker and casino games alone could be worth up to $12 billion in the U.S. The white-shoe investment bank also concluded that because of the tax implications alone, the U.S. market is likely to be legalized sooner rather than later.

????That is exactly what U.K.-based Betfair, one of the world's largest Internet gambling companies, is betting on. But rather than wait for all forms of gambling to get the green light, it's making its initial push in the U.S. via horseracing. "We want to bring the Facebook generation to the track," says Gerard Cunningham, who heads up Betfair's U.S. operations.

????In January, privately-held Betfair acquired Los Angeles-based American TV Games Network, an online horse race betting company for $50 million. The price tag was so hefty in large part because TVG has its own television channel that broadcasts horse racing to 32 million households across the United States.

????Cunningham is currently staffing up in Silicon Valley. The plan is to build a technical team that can combine that television property with a brawnier website, which can stream live horse races to viewers and add all the social media bells and whistles, including Twitter feeds, chat and blogging -- to make the horse-racing experience more akin to watching an episode of "Lost" on Hulu.

????In the United States in 2008 about $14 billion was bet on all forms of horse-racing -- $1.5 billion was bet online. Betfair's TVG handled about $500 million of the online transactions. And while it is currently restricted to so-called parimutuel betting in the U.S. (where the house takes a cut of the overall pool of bets), what it hopes to do, as laws allow, is to bring exchange betting to the U.S.

????Exchange betting is where Betfair has made its name outside of the U.S., and is what makes Betfair one of the largest pure-play Internet companies in the world. In concept the model is similar to eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500), only instead of providing a marketplace where buyers and sellers are connected, Betfair's model matches up people on both sides of a bet. That bet can range from a match at Wimbledon to the outcome of a political contest. One person proposes a wager and another person (or group of people) take the other side. Betfair makes its money on a 2% to 5% commission paid by the winner. In the year ending April 2008, that amounted to $396 million in revenue and $69.5 million in profit for Betfair.

????Like the Goldman Sachs analysis, the Betfair team believes that online gambling will be expanded in the United States, probably on a state by state basis rather than with a sweeping federal law, Cunningham says (hearings on a bill proposed by Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank that would undo most of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement are delayed until at least September).

????The technical team he is building in Silicon Valley is therefore taking a very modular approach to what its building online so that various components of online gambling can be turned on and off depending on the laws in individual states (or even countries). So that might mean poker and horseracing in one state, and sports betting in another.

????Right now, Betfair is focused exclusively on horse racing in the United States, because that is what is emphatically legal, Cunningham says. "When other forms of gambling become legal, we'll be ready," he says. "Until then, if it's even a grey area we're not going to touch it."

掃碼打開財富Plus App
日韩精品久久无码人妻中文字幕| 最新欧美国产亚洲一区| 一区二区亚洲欧洲无码AV| 亚洲AV无码一区二区乱子伦| 国产精品一区二区三区四区| 密桃亚洲乱码国产乱码精品精| 亚洲国产成人无码av在线影院| 18禁黄无码免费网站高潮|欧美日韩国产综合草草| 日韩午夜无码a级毛片| 东京热av人妻无码| 一区二区三区成人欧美日韩在线观看久| 国产一级一级理论片A片一区二区| 无码国产激情在线观看| CAOPORN国产精品免费视频| 亚洲欧美中文日韩V在线观看| 久久国产欧美日韩精品| 亚洲精品国产精华液怎么样亚洲 | 精品国产国产综合精品| 久久天天躁狠狠躁夜夜躁2020| 在线精品一区亚洲毛片免费一级| 国产精品嫩草影院AV| 一区二区三区国产亚洲网站| 亚洲熟女伦子伦av一区二区三区| 国产精华av午夜在线观看日韩| 无码专区久久综合久综合字幕| 亚洲youwu永久无码精品草莓| 国产精品女同一区二区| 精品久久久久久综合日本| 日韩无不卡无码毛片| 女人站着被舌头伺候| 日韩欧美精品一区二区三区视频在线观看| 国产蜜桃一区二区三区在线观看 -| 久久婷婷五月综合丁香人人爽| 久久青青草原国产精品免费| 色8久久人人97超碰香蕉987| 久久久久久久综合色一本| 中文字幕亚洲一区二区VA在线| 日本免费一区香蕉视频| 亚洲欧美中文日韩V在线观看| 为啥男人喜欢把奶头往里按呢| 日本乱偷人妻中文字幕4399|