How Would Joe Biden's Presidency Affect Online And Land-Based Casino Industries?

After long and pretty tiresome elections that proved to be an emotional rollercoaster for every American citizen, it seems that the US has finally chosen its new head of the state — Joe Biden.

As you’re about to see, if Donald Trump had been re-elected, that wouldn’t have been good for the online gambling industry, but what about his opponent? What are Joe Biden’s views on online and land-based casino industries? How will he approach the matter?

Most importantly, will casinos thrive under the new president?

Let’s find out!

Biden on the Wire Act

The infamous Wire Act has been cited many times as one of the main legislative pieces to be used to regulate online gambling. In its original form that was passed back in 1961, the Wire Act only applied to sports betting.

However, the US Department of Justice under the Trump administration and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to re-interpret the Wire Act in 2019. Their goal was to make it apply to all other types of online gambling, including online casinos and online poker. The Wire Act, as such, only applied to sports betting when it was created.

If that happens, all states that regulated online gambling could become jeopardized.

Biden was pretty clear on this issue, stating that he would reverse the opinion imposed by the White House. In other words, he agreed that the court was correct when it overruled the White House’s attempt to re-interpret the Wire Act.

Moreover, Biden said to CDC that federal authorities should cooperate with individual states to make sure that all forms of gambling were safe, fair, and free of corruption. Strictly speaking, Biden does seem to be the voice of the people in this matter, as the majority of Americans agree with him.

On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that Joe Biden was a vice president in 2011, the year when the idea of re-interpreting the Wire Act was born. However, much has changed since then, and Biden did have some encouraging comments about the future of online gambling.

In his visit to Las Vegas, he said that he “doesn’t support adding unnecessary restrictions to the gaming industry as the Trump administration has.”

This statement is the most promising thing we have about Biden’s view of online gambling. However, it could be interpreted as just another way to point out some of the things that Trump and his team did wrong. Time will tell.

According to Steve Ruddock, an expert on the iGaming industry, the new Attorney General isn’t likely to invest more time and resources into further re-interpreting the Wire Act. In fact, Ruddock claims that the more likely scenario would include the government simply dropping the case.

It means that the federal authorities would probably not meddle as much in the matter. Experts agree that neither of the candidates would go the distance to legalize online gambling at the federal level.

The best option we have so far is that the current president will simply leave the case alone, and Joe Biden seems to have promised to do just that.

According to Ryan Knuppel, Right now, three states completely legalized online gambling — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. However, this list will expand further in the near future.

For example, West Virginia is on a good path to legalizing online operations as it passed an expanded gambling law. Michigan is also doing well, as the bill should be approved by the governor.

The Wire Act will become more difficult to re-interpret and impose on the federal level as more states decide to legalize online gambling.

It’s sort of a snowball effect, as more states will stand united and fight with all their resources to protect their tax streams that would come from online gambling operations.

Still, letting every state decide on its own whether online gambling should be legal or not is the best way to go. More conservative states where gambling is considered immoral would never join the cause, whereas many would welcome online gambling with arms open wide.

Some experts agree that trying to approach online gambling on a federal level and impose it on all states would be considered unnecessary and costly.

Land-Based Gambling: What’s Biden’s Opinion?

So far, we concluded that Joe Biden is definitely pro-gambling. However, his approach to the land-based gambling industry might be somewhat different compared to Trump’s.

Namely, both candidates wanted to gain as many votes as possible when they were in the middle of their respective presidential campaigns, which meant getting the gambling industry to like them.

However, they focused on different types of voters. Trump mainly spoke to casino owners and promised them to improve their overall position, especially after the devastating year of 2020 that caused many land-based casinos to shut down.

On the other hand, Joe Biden mainly addressed ordinary casino workers, claiming that their health and safety is of utmost importance. Therefore, he’ll pay more attention to workers’ unions and hopefully listen to their demands.

According to a finance professor at Boston College, Rev. Richard McGowan, Biden is more likely to propose another casino lockdown if the situation requires so, even though it would financially cripple the land-based gambling industry.

If Trump had remained, he would have been less likely to advocate another lockdown. He has plenty of friends among casino operators, and that would definitely strain his relations with them.

Trump’s Involved in the Industry

The former president of the US, Donald Trump, was himself part of the gambling industry. He gained a lot of friends there, and it could be said that his actions in the White House were mainly aimed at supporting his business partners.

One person comes to mind when thinking about Trump and his history with gambling — Sheldon Adelson. The land-based casino tycoon has been one of the leading donors to the GOP.

Moreover, Adelson always opposed online gambling and invested a lot into organizations fighting this type of entertainment. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that the Trump administration wanted to help Adelson in his endeavor by re-interpreting the Wire Act.

Simply put, that would allow the land-based industry to flourish further, with no real competition in sight.

On the other hand, Joe Biden has never been quite involved in the industry, although he also never opposed it.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that we could expect Joe Biden to be less interested in the industry and let things take their own shape.

The most likely scenario would be the one where his administration would let every state decide what steps to take and then let the federal authorities jump in and bring further order.

Final Thoughts

Online operators definitely welcome Joe Biden’s presidency. Even though nobody expects Biden to jump in and speed up the process of online gambling legalization, it’s safe to say that he would stay out of it as much as possible.

That’s not what the former US president did.

That said, some land-based operators might not be as enthusiastic about Biden, as they were closely tied with Trump.

Sheldon Adelson and other high-ranking individuals from the industry cannot expect the same level of support as they had with Donald Trump. Perhaps that’s why Las Vegas Sands is looking to sell its three remaining properties in the US?

What matters is that the US opened a new chapter in its history, with Joe Biden as the president. This would affect many things, including the entire gambling industry.

Even though it’s difficult to make any predictions at this point, industry experts are overall happy with the change. They believe that the online gambling industry would further thrive under Biden.

Land-based casinos would suffer, but only if the situation regarding the Covid-19 gets out of control. Otherwise, we’re sure Biden would find a way to talk with both casino owners and worker unions to make both sides happy.

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