Bally’s Chair Wants Live Dealer Games to Pave Way for iCasino Legislation

As states remain mostly undecided about online casinos in their jurisdictions, private businesses have been pushing hard for the introduction of iCasino bills. These efforts have fallen utterly short of the success reaped by the sports gambling framework in the United States.

Live Dealers Could Convince Lawmakers to Endorse iCasino

Now, though, Bally’s Chairman, Soo Kim, believes that there can be a way to work around that, and envisages that the introduction of live dealer table games, without other forms of iCasino products, could pave the way for future iCasino legalization in the United States, according to industry publication Play USA.

Kim is confident that lawmakers could be more open to the idea of introducing live dealer games individually as opposed to a broader framework that would also usher in slots and RNG games of chance that are generally eyed with suspicion.

Of course, there is a deeply personal agenda that Kim is pursuing as he acknowledges that the competition in the online slot segment is cut-throat, creating small profit margins or, if not that, then at least making it very hard to sell to legislators and secure a pole position in the vertical once and if it’s legalized.

The idea to legalize just a single faucet of the iCasino vertical is not entirely new, but as confirmed by Play USA, making it a reality is only gathering momentum now.

Online live dealer games have not been decoupled from online slots, but with fears about responsible gambling and mounting pressure on certain sectors, such as sweepstakes, it might be better to lean more heavily on just this aspect of iCasino.

Overcoming Initial Fears and Creating Opportunities for Growth

The benefits are clear to the naked eye when it comes to the tax windfall that states enjoy from iCasino and other activities, such as sports betting. Citing data from 2022, New Jersey raised $249.4 million from its iCasino operators, and around $93.9 million from online sports betting operations.

This ratio has been kept in subsequent years, as well, with casinos a better way of propping up the public purse.

However, slots are generally associated with fears of addiction, which Kim and other industry bigwigs now want to address by simply going around the contentious issue altogether and introducing a product that can have a strong impact on the industry, business, and state budgets.