Not sure you won't have some other effects. France is actually also following the internet gaming is illegal line and arrested two Austrian executives from BWin. Italy I seem to recall has a state sponsored site and considers all others illegal. Asia is starting to pursue illegallizing internet gaming, especially China, which has the means to enforce it through their internet censorizing system, and has the secondary problem that there is limited credit card use. Canada has the a similiar situation to the US murky legality, which the government could choose to pursue, and the structure of the internet ISP address system may make it very difficult for companies to continue to accept customers from Canada. I hate to be the voice of doom, but some of the companies are not going to survive. They will have to cash out all their American customers, which will be an enormous drain, they all have current debt overhang, their business models are built on having the American market, and their current lenders are unlikely to have much tolerance for new loans to explotate markets of questionable legality. The biggest problem is how the financial markets will see this situation. Will the investment banking people still be willing to put money into internet gaming, even though some people will have lost alot of money. Usually when an industry takes a bath like this as a groups, (i.e., the tech crash), they can be if anything overcautious about reinvesting. I know there are some private equity firms, like the folks that bought Harrah's, that are looking for distressed industries they can buy up on the cheap, and they may buy up the industry on the cheap if they think there is still enough value in the financials. People will quickly put a premium price on the few European facing sites as buyout targets. A few will survive, there will be consolidation, and maybe some new smaller players with less debt overhang, but I don't think everyone will make it. You can check out the link for how the markets are reading it. Don't want to cause panic, but if anyone has a large alot of money in their account, I'd cash it and would suggest caution while it all sorts out. In the meanwhile, a site that is independantly owned, (no American equivalent), and has always only accepted Europeans is the safest if you need to keep a large balance.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/finan...e09e&k=9340,
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pb...0/1003/BUSINESS
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?156076
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...mbling-ON.html
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articleb...SURE-GAMING.xml