New Jersey Online Gambling Brief March 6, 2014: Neteller to NJ
For any New Jersey online poker that has been having trouble funding their online poker account there is now an alternative option available. Neteller, one of the online gambling industry’s staple payment processors has announced it is now available in the US, and one online poker site wasted little time in adding Neteller to their payment processing options.
Who was it? You can find out below.
On top of the terrific news that Neteller is back in the US we’ll also detail the record setting tournaments that took place this past Sunday at partypoker and at Ultimate Poker; a new promotion at US.888Poker.com; the latest grumblings on who might be in line to take over the Revel Casino; and the latest traffic numbers from the New Jersey market.
Neteller returns to the US and is already available at WSOP.com
The big news this week in New Jersey (and for online gamblers everywhere) was the return of Neteller to the US market.
According to Neteller, now known as Optimal Payments, they have entered into an agreement with a “federally-insured US financial institution sponsor” allowing Neteller to reenter the US market [you can find more details on this story at NJ.com].
For those of you that are too young to remember or weren’t into online poker during its first go round from 1998-2006, Neteller was the #1 way to deposit and withdraw money at online gambling sites. And it took only two days after Monday’s announcement for Neteller to pop back up in US online poker.
On Wednesday WSOP.com announced they were now accepting Neteller as a payment option.
The addition of Neteller transforms WSOP.com’s payment options from mediocre to perhaps the best in the licensed US market, and now gives players having issues with credit card deposits a fast simple way to fund their online gaming accounts, as they can use those same credit cards to open a Neteller account and fund their online poker accounts!
Ultimate Poker and partypoker draw big crowds
This past weekend was a record setter for a pair of New Jersey online tournaments.
Ultimate Poker’s $20k Guaranteed tournament drew a crowd of 300 players, easily eclipsing the guaranteed prize-pool and turning the tournament into a NO-verlay event (which means every player had their buy-in refunded by the site) while partypoker’s massive $100k Guaranteed tournament set all kinds of records, with a field of 786 players and a total prize-pool of over $145k.
Both of these turnouts were records for the two sites, and Party’s was the largest weekly tournament in New Jersey’s short history.
Of course, the next logical question to ask is whether they can keep the momentum up or if traffic numbers dip back down to their usual levels this week?
I have a feeling Party Poker will see a significant decline, but Ultimate Poker should see another huge turnout this Sunday considering this will be the last week of the NO-verlay promotion, and if more than 220 players register the tournament is essentially a freeroll.
888 goes a bit Mad in March
After very little in the way of promotions over the past month it appears that 888 Poker has finally awaken from its winter slumber, as the site has announced a new promotion for the month of March, which 888 has dubbed “Mad Month,” an apparent play on words for the NCAA basketball tournament known as March Madness.
The entire promotion is pretty difficult to explain [note to 888, simplicity sells] and involves multiple stages ranging from daily missions that need to be completed to receive tickets for an $8,888 freeroll tournament, to a special grand finale tournament with an $88,888 prize-pool.Ome
For more information on the promotion you can visit the 888 New Jersey website.
New Jersey traffic numbers
Traffic numbers are on the rise in New Jersey for one site in New Jersey this week, as Party / Borgata saw their average cash-game traffic rise to 240 players according to www.pokerscout.com, which is very close to the high-water mark for the site.
For the remainder of the online poker rooms in New Jersey traffic was pretty much static, with WSOP.com clocking in at 170 average cash-game players, 888 Poker at 120 average cash-game players, and Ultimate Poker bringing up the rear with a meager average of just 16 cash-game players.
We thought you should know…
It seems the Hard Rock’s interest in the Revel Casino is a lot more serious than people first believed. According to the Press of Atlantic City’s Jennifer Bogdan (a must follow on Twitter for anyone interested in US iGaming) Seminole Hard Rock Entertainment has been making serious inquiries to the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement about licensing in the state, which many have interpreted as the company having designs on the bankrupted Revel Casino.
You can read the entire story at the Press of Atlantic City.
