New Jersey Senate passes egaming bill
Legislation now needs to be signed into law with 45 days by Governor Chris Christie.
A bill which would allow New Jersey residents to play poker and casino games online has been passed by the state Senate and heads to Governor Chris Christie’s desk for final approval.
Bill S1565 passed in a 33-3 vote yesterday, with its Assembly version A2578 passing 48-24-4 on Monday, however it remains unclear if Christie (pictured) will sign the bill into law, having vetoed similar legislation in 2011. He has 45 days to either sign or veto the bill.
The bill’s primary sponsor Senator Raymond Lesniak said the state’s Atlantic City casinos need the revenue online gambling would provide, or else some may have to close, which would result in the loss of thousands of jobs.
He told Card Player: “This will help replenish the casino revenue fund. This is just the first step. Other states will want to get in on our action.”
Last year, New Jersey missed the chance to become the first state to regulate online gambling when Christie refused to pass Lesniak’s S490 bill. One of the Governor’s concerns at the time was that the legislation did not have measures to prevent anyone but the Atlantic City casinos from offering online gambling. This has been addressed in the current bill, with all gaming servers required to be located on properties owned by the 12 Atlantic City casinos.
Bill S1565 was first approved by a New Jersey committee in May, with a ‘bad actor’ amendment made which would have prohibited any organisations which offered online gambling in the US after 31 December 2006, which would have excluded the likes of PokerStars and Full Tilt. PokerStars shut down its US-facing operations in April last year following the Black Friday indictments and the clause would have blocked Stars from applying for a licence, despite reaching a $731m settlement with the US Department of Justice in July without admitting any wrongdoing. However that particular provision was removed from Lesniak’s bill earlier this month.
It has since been reported that PokerStars is in talks to acquire the struggling Atlantic Club Casino Hotel from investment group Colony Capital for a fee thought to be less than $50m.
Christie has not commented publicly on online gambling this year and his administration is attempting to legalise sports betting, recently filing papers challenging the PASPA federal ban and opposing the professional sport leagues’ suit against the state’s bid to legalise it.