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New Jersey Follows Nevada in Attempts to Legalize Online Gambling

Raymond Lesniak, State Senator in New Jersey, is attempting an eleventh hour effort to legalize online poker on the intrastate level and is pushing an online gambling bill through to be signed by Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, before the end of the legislation session on the 9th of January 2012.

This is not the first attempt by Senator Lesniak, he tried to push the bill through in the early 2011 however it was vetoed by Christie. Christie commented his decision saying that , “the creation of a legal fiction deeming all wagers to have ‘originated’ in Atlantic City cannot overcome the clear and unambiguous language of the State Constitution.”

However with the clarification of the Wire Act by the DoJ a few days before Christmas Senator Lesniak is hoping that Christie’s point of view may have changed. DoJ claimed for many years that according to the Wire Act 1961 all internet gambling was prohibited disregarding the ruling of the Fifth District Court in 2002. A few days ago however DoJ changed its position on the subject and confirmed that it is indeed only applicable to the sports betting. Following this unexpected change of opinion by the DoJ the expectations are that government officials including Governor Christie could review their stance on the internet gambling as it is no longer seen to be an illegal activity by the DoJ.

Poker Players Alliance and Caesars Entertainment were against the original bill in 2011 as they both felt that it will lead to the fragmentation of the American online gambling market and all effort should be made to resolve the legislation on the federal and not state level.

The new proposal of the bill that Lesniak is pushing through has strict clauses to combat illegal betting companies including a fine of $1,000 per player per day which could be levied on anyone who is running an illegal operation in the state and $10,000 for advertising such illegal businesses.

The operation of online gambling in New Jersey will not be open to every operator, according to the present legislation any gambling can only occur in Atlantic City so only Atlantic City casinos will be able to apply for the licenses and all gaming servers would have to be located there.

The new bills also allocates $100,000 per operator per year to deal with addicted and problem gamblers and 10% tax on the gambling revenue.