It may lack the razzmatazz of Las Vegas, but online gambling is starting to pull in the punters. This is where Sweden's Boss Media AB comes into the game, designing and building online casinos for clients around the world from its headquarters in Vaxsjo, southern Sweden, which it operates from a server in Antigua in the West Indies. Internet casinos are not competitors to land-based casinos, they're complements. Wherever you are you can gamble, as long as you have a computer and Internet access.
Nobody really knows how big the market is.
In 1997 there were 40 gambling Web sites. Now an estimated 650 e-gaming Web sites have sprung up globally, many in the Caribbean and Canada. Even Ladbrokes, the gambling arm of Hilton Group and Britain's largest betting shop chain, has ventured into online gambling, launching two Internet sites in February. It plans to exceed this number in 2000. It posted a profit after financial items of 26.5 million crowns compared to a loss of 8.9 million in 1998.