Interactive gambling will be one of multimedia’s most profitable applications – far more lucrative than sending video-on-demand along the information highway, for instance. After all, Americans spent some $340 billion on gambling in 1993. They spent a meager $5 billion at the cinema.
Predictor: Goldberg, Nelson
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for The Economist concerning the explosion of online gambling sites, David Bennahum quotes Nelson Goldberg, president of Gambling Entertainment Television. Bennahum writes: ”Gambling is heading for the information highway … Gambling Entertainment Television, a cable-TV station based in Pittsburgh, is to start broadcasting horse racing, poker and $1 million-jackpot bingo, all of which will allow interactive gambling … The strategy of GET, whose investors are betting $55 million on the venture, is … gambling, not advertising, will earn the money. In order to play, viewers will have to make a wager on the telephone or through a pay-per-view charge. To comply with Federal Communications Commission rules against broadcasting games of ‘chance,’ the network will offer programs that the regulators consider to be based on ‘skill.’ One of these is picking winning horses (which suggest that FCC commissioners rarely visit the racetrack). In the case of bingo, the channel gets round the rules by giving betting cards away free – but only to viewers who pay a monthly charge. GET’s rivals worry that big profits from interactive gambling could attract unwelcome government attention. Nelson Goldberg, its president, is unmoved. He predicts that interactive gambling will be one of multimedia’s most profitable applications – far more lucrative than sending video-on-demand along the information highway, for instance. After all, Americans spent some $340 billion on gambling in 1993. They spent a meager $5 billion at the cinema.”
Date of prediction: April 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Gambling
Name of publication: The Economist
Title, headline, chapter name: Betting on Bits
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://memex.org/bettingonbits.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: McAlister, Rory