Online Casino Games for British Columbia
This is an interesting new development. Looks like the Province of British Columbia will be providing a legal online casino and online gambling website for residents of the province.
The BCLC (British Columbia Lottery Corporation) is guessing that their online casino offering could generate $100 Million in revenue by 2014.
Having been involved in online gambling from a marketing side for about 7 years this is definitely an interesting development. Offshore casinos have roadblock after roadblock in dealing with North American facing customers. Everything from where to advertise to how to pay out the customers is an issue.
Check out this quote from BCLC CEO Michael Graydon:
""Rather than it all going offshore to places like Antigua, there's an opportunity to keep it here in British Columbia," corporation CEO Michael Graydon told CBC News."
I was "Web Manager" at bodog.com (whose marketing arm was known as Riptown Media at the time) and created their Internet Marketing department back in the day (when I started there were 70 some employees at Riptown Media when I finished there were over 500) - that is a direct reference to Bodog as Bodog.com is now being run to some degree out of the tropical island of Antigua.
Some of British Columbia's changes are:
- Allowing online casino gaming at https://playnow.bclc.com.
- Daily betting limit of $10,000 per day (from $120 per day).
- A 24 hour "cooling off" period for customers who lose too much money.
This is a huge step forward for legalized online gambling in Canada (and ultimately in the US) - which is a good thing overall. I know I've been chomping at the bit to actually be to market online casino and online gambling products in the same way other products are marketed.
It's time to legalize online gambling already.
Check out the source article:
BCLC introduces legal and authorized online casino gaming
Related articles:
- B.C.'s online casino plan draws criticism (cbc.ca)
- B.C. raises stakes for online gamblers (cbc.ca)
- Minnesota Sued Over Online Gambling Ban, While Frank Again Introduces Bill To Legalize It (techdirt.com)