A conference on internet gambling has looked into whether online gambling is a benefit or a form of competition to land based operations.

At the Las Vegas based event experts have suggested that online gambling has the potential to enhance land based operations and are not a competitive threat that could harm the business. Three experts suggested that legalisation of internet gambling in the US would provide land based operators the opportunity expand their customer base.

The panel which included, Jan Jones of Caesars Entertainment, Art Manteris of Station Casinos and Doug Dalton of Bellagio, were addressing the 300 delegates at the iGaming North America conference.

Jones suggested that the average gaming customer is around 50 years old, and the upcoming generation of gambler makes all of their decisions on the Internet. They meet, they congregate, they make entertainment choices and I believe if we don't have a significant presence, there is the likelihood that they will make other entertainment choices that are not gambling choices.

Jones suggested the newspaper industry, record stores and bookstores were examples of businesses that failed to consider online strategies and suffered the consequences as a result.

The president of the Consultants Concept Development Group, Mark Tenner, suggested that 11 years ago roughly 250 000 people played poker online or in casinos and now there were thought to be around 65 million players.

The chairman of The Innovation Group, Steve Rittvo, claimed that the poker market would double within five years of online gambling being legalised in the US.

The CEO of Red Planet Marketing in Austria, Vahe Baloulian, suggested that the markets in Europe had grown as a result of the television by educating viewers on how to play.

It was also claimed that the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour had seen an increase as online casino and poker players had taken part.

It is quite clear that online bingo has not really had any effect on land based bingo clubs. Most bingo clubs due to their location only have to take account of the operations of rival clubs within the area and the rebalancing in the demand has been largly down to factors such as the smoking ban. Ironically online bingo operators on the other hand are about to see their own fight for survival due to expected legislation changes and the growing number of operators within the market.