Is Legal Online Casino Gambling Dead in New Hampshire? - Granite Grok

Is Legal Online Casino Gambling Dead in New Hampshire?

Casino -- dice
What if you could do your casino gambling online?

OnlinePokerReport.com has a piece up this morning declaring legal online gambling dead in the state, for now.

In a unanimous vote of 23-0, the bill was found “inexpedient to legislate” by the members of the executive session. The vote puts an end to New Hampshire’s online gambling hopes for the remainder of the legislative session.

While not entirely accurate (someone could try to save it during the floor vote) a 23-0 ITL is a pretty good indicator that as written, HB 562 is on its way out to pasture for the legislative season.

The site doesn’t give up hope, but making online casino gambling legal in the Granite State looks a lot like an expansion of the online lottery games slated to begin in 2018.

If New Hampshire takes another crack at online casinos next year, the most likely model is for the state lottery to oversee the process. It would offer the games alongside its online lottery products.

A second possibility would see the lottery create the framework. Then the state’s gaming establishments would operate as skins, slapping their unique branding on the singular online gambling platform.

A more significant question is in the absence of bricks and mortar casinos (and their potential to attract issues for the towns where they are erected) will the Casi-NO crowd in New Hampshire (of which I am one) find themselves short on objections? Are there still adequate social-negatives to the gambling culture (ala online access) to make a case for opposing it?

I don’t have an answer for you yet. I’d like to dig into this some more before coming to any decision.  You are, of course, welcome to make your thoughts known immediately, and as always are encouraged to do just that.

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