The Internet Blows The Doors Off U.S. Gambling

Gambling Has A History of Limited Access in the USA.  Gambling has a very long history of being popular in the United States, going all the way back to colonial days. In fact, one of the issues that colonists had with their British rulers was the opposition of Britain to the lotteries that were run in America, and this was one of the reasons cited for America’s move toward independence.

Since then, the laws of gambling have changed back and forth quite a bit, with it being more or less legal at various times, but the big appetite for Americans to gamble has remained throughout, regardless of whether more or less legal gambling was available.

There are two main components that determine the extent of gambling in a given area, the willingness to gamble and the access people have to gambling. There has always been a big willingness for Americans to gamble, and it’s really come down to how easy it is for them to do so that has determined things.

Up until very recently, all gambling was offered at physical locations, whether that meant going to someone’s house that you knew where a game was running, playing in an underground casino, placing sports bets with a bookie, going to a gambling hall or saloon where it was offered, going to a legal casino or card room, buying lottery tickets at the corner store, and so on.

So you always had to go somewhere, and these places had to be located conveniently enough for you to want to take advantage of them. So it’s always really been about access, and more access means more people gamble, and when access is more limited, the opportunities become more limited as well.

The Internet Has Changed Things Forever

The access one has to land based gambling really depends on your physical location, for instance if you live in Nevada, and in Las Vegas or Reno in particular, gambling is rampant and easily accessed, but if you live over the state border in Utah, there’s no legal gambling there whatsoever, and very little gambling overall as well.

So these are two states sitting side to side in the American West, one that has the most gambling available and the other the least, at least where land based gambling is concerned, which hits home the fact that where you live matters, or at least used to.

With US online gambling though, all you need is access to the internet to be able to gain entry into a whole new world of gambling, far exceeding anything the world has ever seen. A great number of gambling sites are now magically brought right into your home and can be accessed immediately with just a few clicks of a mouse.

You don’t even have to download anything anymore at many online sites if you don’t want to, as a lot of them offer instant play right in your web browser. You can even gamble to your heart’s content on your mobile device, anytime, anywhere.

There is a multitude of choice here, in an environment that is extremely competitive where gambling providers fight hard for your business to provide you with even better deals and even better gambling experiences to tempt you and to outdo one another.

Is Online Gambling Here To Stay?

Gambling at a land based casino or US poker room certainly has its unique benefits compared to online gambling sites, which offer a full experience including social interaction as well as amenities like great food, great hotels, and non gambling based entertainment on the side.

On the other hand, gambling at a land based casino does involve going to one, and incurs a fair bit of additional expense as well. Some land based casino operators have worried that online casinos will take away a lot of their business, but we don’t really see that, because they really are different experiences.

In fact online gambling seems to be popularizing land based gambling even more, and from whetting people’s gambling appetites, more and not less are seeking the full sensory experience of a land based casino.

Governments have a long history of looking to restrict gambling, and while that has worked fairly well in curtailing land based gambling, they really don’t have a chance where online gambling is concerned, mostly because these casinos are outside the U.S. and there’s no good way to stop people from visiting them on their computer and on their mobile devices whenever they want.

So US online gambling is certainly here to stay, as sure as the internet is.