The Death of Online Gambling?

This week looks like it’s going to be a volatile week. I expect the Dow to be in and out of record territory all week. There are quite a few economic reports coming out this week, starting with today’s construction spending and manufacturing and ending the week with the unemployment report. I think we should do OK heading into Christmas as the market is coming off the best third quarter it’s had in years, and as I said before a new record will cause greed bells to ring in peoples heads. Not wanting to be left out, the public will rush back into the markets.

I’m hoping for a good week from CLRK and would like to see SCUR shake off its downgrade. CLRK finished below $17.00. We’re still looking for it to hold above the $17.00 range. SCUR dropped to $6.33 on Friday after a downgrade and we’re looking to see it shake that off this week and head back towards $7.00.

My favorite event of the weekend occurred on Saturday. Congress approved a bill that would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gaming sites. This would effectively prevent any online gaming sites from charging US players. As most of the online gaming sites derive the majority of their revenue from the US, this will have a major impact on their revenue. As can be expected, the shares of most of these companies are plunging on overseas markets. Shares of these companies are down anywhere from 20% to over 60% in European trading.

I expect that this caught a lot of these company’s shareholders off guard. I think this is another case of the institutions running for the exits and the little guy waking up and, not being able to trade in Europe, finding himself in a world of pain.

I wonder how much of this ban is to protect Vegas and Atlantic City? After all I would assume that all the major casino players would have developed online gaming sites. Maybe they were slow off the mark with sites of their own and couldn’t get market share form established players that saw a market and were quick to launch? I’m not very familiar with the gaming industry but it strikes me as strange that in the USA where they pride themselves on freedom to choose, that the government would tell people that they can’t spend their money as they wish. Especially the Republican Party.

Shame, shame.