It’s been a roller coaster ride this past year for the online gambling industry, and with 2012 just days away, now is the time to take a look at the past year, as well as look at the big changes that have been made.

At the beginning of 2011, many online casino operators were shut out of the United States, and as a result, many European online casino operators lost quite a bit of revenue that they would have normally got from U.S. players. The reason being as to why online casino operators were shut out of the United States is because it is illegal to gamble online, and there was a growing concern of offshore gambling as well.

Fast forward a few months later, and Black Friday hit. It may have hit the United States, but it affected the entire gambling industry, especially the poker industry around the globe. Essentially, player confidence was down, and many countries cracked down and got even stricter with their online gambling laws.

The U.K. and many parts of Europe have been successful at keeping online gambling around, and developing great laws that protect players. Across the ocean, the United States has been toughing it out, working tirelessly for legalized online gambling in some states.

It looks like the U.S. will have an easier time of online gambling and making it happen, now that the Obama administration has revised the 1961 Wire Act, changing it so that it only applies to sports betting, instead of applying it to all forms of gambling. With 2012 just days away, it looks like the start of a good year for the gambling industry in the United States, and perhaps, the United Kingdom will benefit from this as well.

Last week, Greece, The Netherlands and Italy made headlines in regards to online gambling. Significant changes are afoot, and the face of online gambling in Europe is quickly changing.

News from Greece about the looming deadline at the end of the month for the government to install measures is the latest development. One of the measures is to legalize online gambling, and award new gaming licenses, including extending OPAP’s monopoly beyond 2020. It is expected that OPAP pay the required license fees, which rings in at a staggering €950 million. A contract needs to be drawn up, and the Greek government will likely not see any of those fees before the end of September.

Another interesting tidbit is that the Greek government owns 34% of OPAP. There were plans to sell their stake at the end of the year, but now there is doubt that the government will do so, especially because politicians don’t want to let go of a cash generating organization.

In The Netherlands, members of parliament are divided over proposals to legalize online gambling.

Italy is enjoying the benefits of legalizing online gambling, and the number of gamblers rose 21.45%, which bring the worth of the industry to €41.9 billion. Hopefully Greece and The Netherlands will be reaping the rewards of legalizing online gambling soon, just like Italy has.

There has been a lot of talk lately about online casinos and the preparation that is behind jumping into the US market. There are several casinos that are totally based in the land based casino market but are strongly considering entering the online casino market as soon as the opportunity becomes available.

There will be online casinos that are currently not operating in the US that are slowly making preparations to make a move but all (or at least most) are waiting to hear the decisions on the law from the US government.
 
Everyone involved in the industry seems to have already assumed that the law will pass and are just waiting for the final word. But the decision is still being reviewed and has the chance to go either way. Online casinos were regarding in a very negative way in the past because of the problems with confirming age over the internet and because the industry was avoiding taxes.

Online casinos will have a great reception when (if) they are back in the market and it will be interesting to see what happens because the online casino industry will be sure to change and have a huge amount of competition and sure to have great promotion for players!