Online gambling has taken place for over a year now in the United States and has been quite successful for the states of Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey. However, despite each state seeing nice traffic numbers and significant revenues in the continually growing industry, the estimated revenues for the future of the industry have been lowered considerably.

According to reports by Morgan Stanley, the prediction of online gambling revenues has been cut almost in half based on the earnings thus far. Morgan Stanley is a top financial services company that offered an estimate for the market by 2020 and this number has now been reduced.

When the research was released, the firm showed that by 2020 the industry would be worth around $2.7 billion. This is almost half of the $5 billion in earnings which was estimated last year. Before last year’s estimate, Morgan Stanley had predicted that the industry would be at around $8 million by 2020.

The estimates appear to keep falling so either the online gambling industry is not thriving or reports are conflicted with what the firm thought would happen with the industry or the figures were just wrong. There are arguments for both sides, with some feeling the industry has not lived up to expectations while others feel as though the industry is doing just fine.

Morgan Stanley stated in their findings that they believe there is a material runway for growth but the results thus far have been disappointing. The firm believes the legislative processes have been slow as lawmaker are unconvinced that online gaming is not worth the hassle for the limited tax revenues.

It will be interesting to see how the industry is able to grow as additional states begin to get in on the online gaming action. There are several states considering legalization of poker or overall online gaming, including California and Pennsylvania.