New Jersey Revives Online Gambling Bill

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Earlier this week the New Jersey House of Assembly approved the progress of the online gambling bill that was sponsored by State Senator Ray Lesniak. Bill A2578 has been amended to widen its scope beyond intrastate online poker to include online casino games. Lesniak has been the driving force behind this online gambling bill and has predicted that the revived bill would be carried by a vote by the full Assembly on December 17. Thereafter it would be followed by a successful state Senate vote on December 20. Lesniak told his supporters, “It’s still not too late for Atlantic City to become the Silicon Valley of Internet Gaming.”

An online gambling bill passed by both legislative bodies in New Jersey was previously rejected by state governor Chris Christie in 2011. Lesniak had revived the bill with the objective of having it adopted by March 2012. The revived bill addressed the Governor’s objections. Predominant among them was locating online gambling servers on the premises of licensed land casinos in Atlantic City so that existing New Jersey laws would not be violated. Unfortunately, the Senate and Assembly passed slightly different versions of the bill and therefore its progress was halted. Legislative recesses and the Presidential election held back progress on this New Jersey online gambling bill. Now a harmonized bill is being pushed through and if it passes both the full House of Assembly and the State Senate then it will go again before Governor Christie. It will be more difficult for the Governor to reject the bill this time. Many more states are seeking intrastate solutions to online gambling rather than have federal laws imposed on them. The state of Delaware has passed laws allowing intrastate online gambling in the wider sense, whilst Nevada has legislation that permits only intrastate online poker.

Another reason that some states are anxious to get their own legislation passed is that the federal Reid-Kyl bill is headed nowhere. Besides this bill covers only online poker and there are states that want to legalize online casino gambling as well. Deutsche Bank gaming analyst Andrew Zarnett has opined that in the absence of federal online gambling legalization individual US states will provide their own legislative solutions in the coming year. There are rich lobbies backing federal legislation. Zarnett has suggested that these investors should start looking at the implications of legalization of online gambling on a state-by-state basis. He pointed out that Nevada is likely to be the first state to start online gambling, though restricted to poker only. Already a number of online poker licenses have been approved. Once the regime goes on line a practical assessment of economics, tax, tribal issues and the general pros and cons would become more reliable.

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