San himself is characteristically ebullient about what lies ahead. His company -- which provides poker players with an immersive experience using the 3-D technology standard in video games and virtual worlds such as Second Life -- is growing at 50% per month. It will be profitable this year despite barring U.S.-based players. "Nothing is going to be able to stop this industry," he said.
Numbers Racket
Getting accurate figures on what is happening in online gaming has always been difficult and is now almost impossible.
"Because the public companies left, and the ones stayed are the less transparent private ones, it's much harder to get those numbers," said Sue Scheider, publisher of the Interactive Gaming News. "The difficulty with the unlisted firms is that they are under no obligation to publish their results, so it's incredibly difficult to tell what is actually happening in the market," agreed Ed Barton, an analyst with Screendigest.com, a market research firm that tracks the online gambling industry based in London.
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 Pokerstars.com shows players a classic online "bird's-eye" view of the table. |
Before the U.S. crackdown, online gambling revenue was approximately $12 billion globally, according to London-based Global Betting and Gaming Consultants. Although still just a fraction of the $258 billion overall gambling market -- which includes land-based casinos and card rooms as well as government-sponsored lotteries -- Internet revenue was growing at high double-digit rates. Indeed, after pornography, online gambling was the second-highest Internet-based revenue generator, dwarfing global online retailing and e-commerce activities.
Today, although no one is quite sure how much revenue has evaporated because of fears of legal liability, "online gaming is still huge," said Dave Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "Depending on what numbers you believe it can easily be twice what the entire Las Vegas strip makes annually on all its activities, including food and hotel services in addition to gambling revenues."
Barton belongs to a set of analysts who believes that the volume of the U.S. market was so large as to be irreplaceable in the short term. "Although there are growth areas -- particularly in Asian markets, where many U.K firms are setting up shop -- "the rate of growth there is not event approaching the volumes we saw in the U.S. market," said Barton. "Make no mistake, the industry was hard hit."
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