Imagine it's New Year's 2010 and we're celebrating with a party. Someone pulls out their pocket computer, powers up the holographic screen and suggests we do a little gambling. How are things different than in 2002? Let's put on our lucky boxers and bet on the future.

First thing we see is that everyone has a high-speed connection to the casinos. That's because the servers are now all in space --thereby avoiding any jurisdictional squabbles-- and wireless internet is everywhere: turn on your machine and you're connected! We also see that the virtual casinos are an interactive experience that we only dreamed of back in '02. Your software options now include "Enable Barflies" and a clothing palette for the waitresses, all in full-color interactive 3D of course.

In 2006 the UNGC (United Nations Gaming Council) had been formed to administer and arbitrate the world-wide business of virtual gambling. Using their veto over UNGC debate the Americans had won a UNGC concession that gave them a 100 year exclusive for providing celebrity shows to the virtual casinos in exchange for limited access to American player audiences. Celine Dion signed a life-time virtual casino contract so the whole world now knew of the French-Canadian diva and her backup singers, The Little Babies.

The truth however was that Vegas had never made the transition from land to cyber casinos. By '05 all the major casino software providers had moved to a united Europe to benefit from fully legal, player-insured, government licensing of casinos while the Americans had dragged their heels for years with the "maybe we will, maybe we won't" waffling over virtual gambling's legality within US borders. Once lost, the initiative was never regained and the result was that all cyber casinos where driven by the well-established and superior European-run games and presented in American advertising-driven front ends. Since attendance at the US-owned virtual casino celebrity shows was almost as high as at the casino games themselves everyone seemed happy with the arrangement.

The downside to global virtual gambling had also manifested itself. Part of the UNGC charter was full reciprocity between the participating governments and that meant everyone everywhere had to declare their gambling income and pay the now-standard 50% tax thereon. This didn't seem to deter the players and it was widely suspected that the escalating pan-casino jackpots --now breaking the billion dollar barrier-- were at least part of the reason.