As we reported back in January, New Jersey became the latest state to legalise both online and mobile gambling within its borders. Government officials backed the plan because they believed it would bring in millions of dollars of much needed tax revenue each year. Unfortunately, their estimates have proved to be wildly optimistic for the following reasons.... Many of its citizens chose to continue playing at offshore online poker rooms and casinos that continued to operate within the state. In fact there are reports that overseas companies have intensified their efforts to attract New Jersey players since the legislation was introduced. In order for your poker client to work on your desktop, iPhone or Android, your first had to verify your location by either using your machines IP address or geolocation of your mobile device. In 2014 you might think that this would be a very easy problem to solve but they have experienced huge teething problems which have probably resulted in many mobile gamers reverting to other websites. It has now come to light that even if you manage to get any of the gambling apps to work, almost half of all credit card transactions are declined making it impossible for many real money players to deposit funds in their accounts. It is still early days in this experiment so New Jersey make at some point achieve the revenue targets they have set but these kind of technical and financial transaction problems will make things far more difficult. It is hard to blame New Jersey gamblers for abandoning these state licensed gabling companies due to the frustration of not being able to get the software to work or or not being able to deposit money in their player accounts.
New Jersey is the big experiment for regulated online gambling in the US. Unless they can get it to work there, I can't see any other states going to the effort of legalizing online poker or casino sites. One solution to the problem would be to legalize casino and poker apps on a national level. This would remove the need to verify a users location and credit card companies would be free to process all transaction.
i read recently that new jersey are introducing a new credit card code in an effort to boost credit card acceptance rates for online gambling within the state. even though internet poker in legal in new jersey, only 40% of mastercard transactions are approved which is severely hampering the growth of legal online and mobile poker sites in the US.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is also currently trying to decriminalize sports wagering in New Jersey. Unfortunately, the legislation will only allow sports betting to take place at racetracks or Atlantic City casinos and stops short of legalising internet wagering.
it's rumored that pokerstars will be granted a gambling license in nj shortly. maybe that will help give legal gambling a boost within the state.
Yes, now that PokerStars has changed ownership it's only a matter of time before they reenter the US marketplace. They've already started applying for poker licenses in various states.
playing at these US legal poker rooms is a waste of time IMO. traffic is way too low so all the action is limited to a few tables at the lower limits. as a result the guaranteed tournament prize pools are tiny when compared to US frinendly poker sites like blackchip and americas cardroom.
PokerStars were granted a poker license in New Jersey so it'll be interesting to whether they can entice local players to play legal poker.
these legal poker sites have tiny player pools and guaranteed prizes so the only advantage of playing there is easy deposits and withdrawals. now that americas cardroom and bovada have added bitcoin to their cashier it's easier to play at those sites.