In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero, Chris Grove of Narus Advisors shares his thoughts about the online gambling industry specifically on the regulated US market.
Chris Grove of Narus Advisors foresees that the online gambling industry will not flourish on US soil, without a united stand among the stakeholders.
Grove pointed out that one of the challenges for the online gambling industry to really take off in the United States is the fact that it doesn’t have a broader base of support among operators, especially when it comes to gambling regulation.
“I think right now, you have a divided casino industry. Even commercial stakeholders that should have the most incentive to make this happen isn’t fully behind it. And you really haven’t seen anyone outside that very limited population starting to come out to support of regulate online gambling, regulate online casino and online poker,” Grove told CalvinAyre.com
In contrast with the online gambling, Grove said the daily fantasy sports (DFS) is seeing success in the United States due to the fact that it has a “deep and wide bench of political support.”
The support that the DFS gets, according to Grove, doesn’t only come from professional sports team, but also from the leagues, their broadcast partners, and their institutional investors.
“Whereas, the bench for rallying online gambling is half a seat and the casino industry is straddling it in one cheek,” Grove said.
The recent scandal on the possible link to Amaya gaming insider trading probe isn’t also helping the online gambling industry in its cause at all. Grove said the news on Amaya’s links to insider trading, as reported by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), is providing ammunition for anti-online gambling activist to shoot down the industry before it started.
“I think that this is problematic, and I think where it is going to be primarily problematic is in California, which is one of the few state where the bad actor issue is still alive and well,” Grove said. “If they want to stall the process in California, they’ve unfortunately been given bullets that they need to; to load the gun to do so.”
Grove doesn’t also think that the entry of Pokerstars in New Jersey will make a huge impact in terms of advancing the future of the online gambling industry in the US, since it only has a limited audience for its product.
“I don’t think they’ll make much of a difference. I think New Jersey just has the restriction that it has, it has a hard cap population. While Pokerstars can argue that they’ll bring a better product into the market, it is still gonna suffer from the fact that there isn’t that much of an audience to offer to,” he said.
