Trump Taj Mahal and Ultimate Gaming Online Casino
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the Trump Taj Mahal was the premier destination of gamblers living on the east coast. Since then the casino has fallen on tough times, losing the majority of its gambling clientele to Altantic City’s version of a Las Vegas style resort, the Borgata. But by aligning with an upstart online gambling provider, Atlantic City’s former #1 casino hopes to recapture the glory of its former years.
Trump Taj Mahaj’s approach to online gambling
The Taj Mahal’s approach to New Jersey’s burgeoning Internet gaming market is equal parts blindly aggressive and conservative. It announced its intentions to align with Ultimate Gaming, the parent company of Ultimate Poker, in late June 2013, mere hours before the deadline set by NJ regulators for online gambling partners seeking to enter the online gambling arena by the November 26th, 2013 go-live date.
Ultimate Gaming was the first company to provide real money online poker services in Nevada, and as such, has experienced its share of growing pains. Since its inception in April, its proprietary poker brand has been inundated by technical issues, and scorned for its lack of user-friendly features. The company addressed several of its issues in a software patch, but apparently that wasn’t enough to prevent two of its “Team U” sponsored pros from abandoning their contracts. Compounding matters is the fact that Ultimate Gaming is an unknown quantity in the online casino industry.
By aligning with a provider with a clean regulatory record – a claim that Ultimate Gaming boasts freely – the Taj Mahal exhibited its desire to be an early factor in New Jersey’s online gambling market. The Taj Mahal, along with Trump Entertainment’s Trump Plaza, were the third and fourth Atlantic City casinos to be awarded a gaming permit.
Receiving a permit does not guarantee that the Trump Taj Mahal’s online poker room and casino will open on November 26th, but in so long as Ultimate Gaming is approved by the DGE, it does ensure that it will be eligible to begin operations on the go-live date.
Ultimate Poker is a subsidiary of Station Casinos LLC, which is the owner of the UFC. Ultimate Gaming was founded in 2011 by a small group of tech and gaming entrepreneurs.
Trump Taj Mahal’s live poker room
The Trump Taj Mahal’s poker room is marketed as “one of the most respected poker rooms in the entire country,” on its website. While that might certainly be true, respected doesn’t always equate to dollars and cents, as evident by the casino’s sharp revenue declines over the past few years.
At 70 tables, the Taj Mahal still boasts one of the larger live poker rooms in the United States. Cash games run the gamut from 7-Card Stud, to Omaha and NLHE, although the once high-limit cash games have mostly been done away with. These days, the biggest cash games spread at the Taj are $40 – $80 7-Stud and LHE – a far cry from the $300 – $600 LHE game featured in the iconic movie Rounders.
Tournament highlights include:
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Three low buy-in daily MTT tournaments.
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Daily Survivor tournaments (1 in 10 get paid).
Promotions at the Taj Mahal poker room include player comp dollars, a special bonus given to players whose Aces are cracked and a Bad Beat Jackpot. It is currently unknown whether its promotional structure will be used as a model for the Taj Mahal’s online poker room.
Trump Taj Mahal’s role in the Atlantic City market
The Taj Mahal is a casino on the decline. It’s alignment with a relatively unknown entity could prove disastrous, especially if Ultimate Gaming doesn’t do something to differentiate its software from the masses. If it doesn’t, the Taj’s online casino could wind up as barren as its own poker room on a weekday morning.
That’s not to say the partnership between Trump Taj and Ultimate Gaming is without its merits. The seemingly inevitable interstate compact between Nevada and New Jersey will allow Taj Mahal’s NJ online poker room access to players from Las Vegas. And despite falling revenues, Trump Taj still has its renowned poker legacy.
Still, the prospects of Taj Mahal’s online poker room competing with the Borgata’s or Resort’s seem pretty dim. If Ultimate Gaming gets its act together and the Taj revamps its approach to live poker it could possibly become a force in the online gambling market – but that’s a big if.
