States Battle Over Bettors

Michael Cooper looks at the "feverish one-armed-bandit arms race" that has broken out throughout the East Coast, as neighboring states battle to poach and defend their gambling turf.

Take tiny Delaware for example, an early adopter, where "Gambling revenue accounts for more than 7 percent of Delaware's general
fund budget, making it the state's fourth biggest revenue stream, ahead
of its corporate income tax and gross receipts tax. But when new casinos
in Maryland and Pennsylvania began to attract the gamblers who once fed
quarters into Delaware's machines, the state acted. First it legalized a
form of sports betting. Then it allowed table games including
blackjack, craps and roulette. But its gambling revenues have continued
to fall."

In a desperate effort to feed their addiction to gambling revenue, Gov. Jack Markell signed a law at the end of June, "that
could make Delaware the first state to offer Internet gambling..." 

"The endless one-upmanship among states has some analysts wondering at
what point the market will become saturated, and whether the industry
has reached a point of diminishing returns," writes Cooper.