Poll: Should the US casino industry change tack?

With Senators Harry Reid and Jon Kyl’s federal poker-only bill officially dead the US casino industry has once again spent large sums pushing for proposals that were ultimately always likely to fail. But the slimmest of chances was, and perhaps always will be, all it needs to continue to pour millions of dollars into lobby firms’ accounts. There must come a time, however when a change of strategy is needed and now is arguably the time to do just that.

Reid has pledged to continue his fight to get another bill through in 2013 but with his closest ally Kyl close to retirement and Republican support thin on the ground, the prospect of any document reaching the right legislative stage where it ready to be passed through Congress looks bleak.

Large casino groups in Las Vegas, New Jersey and California, three states where online gaming legislation has or is close to being passed, have already begun to line their respective ducks in a row but they will have to move faster than they have done in the last few years, particularly with European operators and suppliers forming alliances and striking deals in order to get a piece of the action.

So what should they do? Should they divert the funnel of federal lobbying cash towards the states that show and are showing the most promise or hang on to the slim hope that the ageing Reid and his dwindled group of federal followers will manage to create the right language in order for a bill to be passed next year? Whatever the decision it will inevitably cost them a pretty dime or two. Vote now in this week’s final poll of 2012.