Online Casinos vs. Land-based Casinos: Friends or Foes?

The proliferation of online casinos has led to many people believing that virtual gambling joints cold eventually take over from their real life counterparts. To have a clearer picture of the situation, let us check the statistics. The accumulated revenue of online casinos in the year 2005 was estimated at $1.3 trillion and increasing as compared to the annual revenue of land-based casinos which is at $600 billion and going to a downward path.

When it comes to online casinos vs. land-based casinos, it seems that the former is becoming a threat to the latter. In a recent poll, however, all indications is pointing towards the opposite direction with most people choosing terrestrial over Internet casinos as only 5% of the respondents prefer online gambling. Likewise, 20% of the participants think that online casinos are less secured as 42% still like gambling in land-based casinos.

Given the figures above, is it safe to say that brick and mortar casinos are more advantageous than the online ones? On the contrary, physical casinos are starting to invest and expand their services on the Internet. Popular British terrestrial casinos like the Stanley Group, William Hill, and Ladbrokes have opened their doors to online gamblers who prefer to play blackjack or poker in well-known online casinos.

In the case of the United States where casino gambling is allowed only in several states, most of the casinos are starting to unwillingly set their sights towards online casinos. This is because there are still laws that prohibit online gambling. However, after the September 11 terror attack, when there was a drop in the number of visitors flocking to Las Vegas casinos, a lot of land-based casinos began to join the online casino bandwagon. Hurrah, one of the large American real casinos who ventured to online gambling, presently offers practice games. MGM accepts players from few countries but not from the United States although it was closed because there were doubts about laws concerning gambling in the United States.

So there is no antagonism when it comes to online casinos vs. land-based casinos. In fact, venturing online is a possibility that can be considered by real life casinos who want to broaden their horizon and establish their business even more. The real enemies of the online casino business are those that provide similar online and offline forms of enjoyment such as bingo, lottery, and sports betting.