In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero, WEBE Gaming President John English talks how things are slowly changing in Nevada, thanks to the new laws and regulations that have been passed in the state.
Little by little, things are changing.
That’s how WEBE Gaming President John English described the current state of Nevada and other U.S. markets when it comes to sports betting, noting that Nevada has been “very outgoing lately” in regulating local sports betting.
“There’s a lot of exciting things happening here in Nevada now… [It’s] very, very outgoing lately on all the new regulations with regard to sport betting, which has been pretty exciting,” English told CalvinAyre.com.
Back in September, the state issued a new law, called entity betting, which allows sports books to accept wagers from companies organized in Nevada. And just recently, the state passed a new legislation that gives the ability “to be able to run the sports bet from Nevada to any other legal jurisdiction around the world.”
“It’s opening up the doors for sports betting here, and that’s quite helping open up the doors nationwide eventually,” English said.
Things are also slowly changing—for the better, hopefully—outside of Nevada.
“Little by little, things are changing,” English said. “We saw a little bit of change with the NBA now, so Adam Silver has taken a good stance on gaming and it looks like he’s going support that for us in sports betting. [It] also looks like there’s some new developments with regards to certain states. We know New Jersey has been pushing really hard for sports betting and a lot of other states really want it, so we’re really hoping that the push from different areas—even Sen. John McCain who is anti-sports has now turned around and is going pro sports—so we’re hoping that with all the new developments, we’ll see some movement here nationwide.”
On the topic of eSports, English believes it’s something to look forward to, even though competitive gaming is different from what the traditional sports betting world is used to.
“I don’t know about take over the world, but it certainly is something, a step in the right direction,” English said. “We’re looking for things that are going to appeal to the younger generation. We take a look at what’s happening on the gaming world, you’ll see a lot of skill games, you’ll see a lot of digital things we never saw before and eSports is one of the next things… I think that people are very interested in it. So we’ll see what happens. And even virtual sports as well, they’re playing a fairly big role, and I think it’s certainly something to watch, for sure.”
