After a successful trial-run that lasted 5 days, the state of New Jersey has, as of November 25, 2013, official launch its legal intrastate real money online poker. As of last Tuesday, half of Atlantic City’s dozen brick-and-mortar casinos got into the online game—literally.
Of the new online poker sites that residents of New Jersey can now legally enjoy are the following:
BorgataPoker {dot} com – brought to you by the Borgata and Party Poker
UltimatePoker {dot} com – brought to you by an offshoot of Station Casinos which is based in Nevada (where, incidentally, intrastate online poker for real money is already legal)
WSOP {dot} com – the World Series of Poker site brought to you by Caesar’s and 888 Poker
One site that was distinctly not present in the big New Jersey legal poker launch was none other than former industry giant Poker Stars. Still a leader in the game, PokerStars is just a little late to this one, apparently. As of this writing, PokerStars is still awaiting its license to operate in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, in the land-based casino world, many of these same casinos getting into or avoiding getting into the online gambling arena are 40% down on revenues from their peak in 2006. There is much debate on whether legal online gaming in New Jersey will help or hurt the effort to close that gap.
Steve Wynn of Wynn Resorts is one brick-and-mortar casino CEO who is all in favor of online poker, seeing it as the inevitable revolution in gaming anyway, whether or not he and his cohorts are on board for it.