Last year, an article written up at Slate speculated that online gambling would be legalised across the U.S. by the end of this decade. The article suggested that with online poker already legal in three U.S. states (Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware), and significant pressure from major gaming companies being put on legislators, a spread is inevitable. Both types of games and regions in which those games are legal will almost undoubtedly expand between now and 2020.
It was a very sound argument from a major publication, but the truth is that Slate’s article was also one of many. It’s not exactly groundbreaking to pose a theory that the U.S. will legalise online gambling, at least in some respects. The industry potential is simply too staggering, and too much of the U.S. population is interested. The issue is just that legislation in America can be a very slow process.
But recently we got a subtle indication that some potentially major players in a hypothetical U.S. online gambling industry may be expecting things to start happening sooner rather than later. According to CNBC, PayPal has worked its way back into some budding online gambling platforms operating in the U.S. This move makes perfect sense, as there’s plenty of business for PayPal even if it’s only operating on sites active in three of the 50 American states. However, the timing has raised some eyebrows. Noise about legalisation efforts in the U.S. is getting louder by the year, and for PayPal to quietly hop on board now suggests that the company is expecting increased activity on the horizon.
As for the actual utility of PayPal for gambling sites and among paying players, the idea is to simultaneously streamline and secure the experience. While U.S. legalisation would bring about the quick emergence of a number of online gambling platforms, many see the most potential in the mobile market that would be attached to these platforms. We’ve already seen in areas of the world in which online gambling is perfectly legal that mobile gaming brings in gigantic amounts of business, and part of that comes down to providing quick gaming and payment methods.
In the UK, the Gala Bingo platform—it incidentally already includes PayPal among its various payment options—has provided a model for making gambling opportunities as accessible as possible to players. Rather than requiring an app download (which is still an option), the site actually offers QR codes that can be read by a smartphone, and which then load the Gala platform onto that phone. Alternatively, players can even send a certain text message to an arranged number and receive the platform as well. This is the sort of speed and accessibility that has made mobile casinos mutually appealing—to the casinos because they bring in business, and to players because everything is so convenient.
The integration of a payment facilitator with online gaming sites and their respective mobile branches is an extension of this convenience, and one from which PayPal stands to benefit enormously. Just as online gamblers grow used to being able to access their favourite sites’ games at the touch of a button or after a quick scan, the ability to pay instantaneously will contribute to the user experience on a broad scale.
This, in addition to the fact that PayPal is generally trusted by the public as a safe way to send and receive funds, is why PayPal and online gambling sites can be so valuable to one another. And the fact that PayPal is already moving on securing these partnerships may just be the latest indication that the U.S. is an online gambling market waiting to explode.