For years, the land-based casino management treated the online casino gambling industry like a big brother treats a younger one.  Since the first online casinos opened for business about a dozen years ago, the land-based casino management was dismissive, at best, toward the novice industry.  For sure, the online casino gambling industry experienced growing pains and many mistakes were made in the industry’s formative years.  As with all things new, there were kinks that needed to be worked out.  The results were that the strongest and best managed online casinos survived and have thrived, and they have made a major impact into the revenues of the land-based casinos.

Recently, at a land casino marketing conference in Las Vegas, the management of these casino expressed concerns that the percentage of new customers have dwindled considerably over the past year.  Now, we all are aware of the global economic recession that has gripped the world markets, and has made many of us more cautious how we spend our discretionary income.

Over the same period of time, however, online gambling new recruits have increased dramatically.  This poses a real concern for land-based casino management who want to stop the revenue bleeding now.  One of the suggestions raised at the marketing conference was to lower the casino edge on slot machine action from 7 percent to 6 percent or even lower.  These marketing experts have agreed in principle that the games must be more entertaining and that the casino’s edge must be reduced.

The important point here is that the land-based casinos are competing against online casino gambling sites that can offer as much as a 98 percent payout on slot machine action.  This is because the online casino gambling sites don’t pay big bucks in overhead as do the land-based casinos. 

People gamble to make money, and it just makes more sense to spend your gambling money in a casino that not only you costs you less to get to, but that offers you a 5 percent better chance of winning.  Additionally, online casinos have no space limitations, so they can offer you an unlimited variety of casino games. 

It appears now that the land-based casino operators recognize the real threat posed to them by the online casino gambling industry.  If the U.S. Congress has its way, the threat will become a full-blown problem when online gambling is once again permitted in the States.