New Jersey Online Gambling Brief December 27, 2013
Despite the holiday season, and people running around searching for those last minute gifts, there was a lot of news coming out of New Jersey during the Christmas week. The big news story of the week turned out to be the winning bid for the Atlantic Club Casino given the final judicial approval, which will see the storied casino’s doors closed on January 13, 2014, ending a 30+ year run by the casino.
In this installment of the New Jersey Online Gambling Brief we’ll bring you the details of the Atlantic Club’s auction and what it might mean for New Jersey; we’ll update you on the number of online gambling accounts that have been created in New Jersey during the first month of licensed iGaming; we’ll let you know which Atlantic City Casino is reopening their brick & mortar poker room; and a whole lot more.
It’s official, the Atlantic Club Casino is closing its doors
For the third week in row we have some news to report on the auction of the Atlantic Club Casino. Last week we told you about the winning bid, placed by the unlikely partnership of the Tropicana and Caesars that would see the two rival companies come in and strip the Atlantic Club of its gaming and hotel assets for the low, low price of $23.4 million, pending a judicial ruling on the proposed sale.
Well, this past week the ruling came down, and the Atlantic Club will soon cease to exist at the far end of the Atlantic City Boardwalk. Judge Gloria Burns scoffed at concerns by a rival bidder (who offered just a hair more money than the Caesars/Tropicana bid, but was seen as higher risk) as well as objections by Local 54 Union-HERE, which was representing the Atlantic Club’s 1,600 employees, who will soon be out of a job.
So what will happen? The Atlantic Club will officially shutter its doors on January 13th, with the employees of the casino receiving a $1,500 severance package, but perhaps more important than the severance packages, their pensions will remain intact. This also means the Atlantic Club’s five potential online gaming domains are no longer available.
I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve heard of the Atlantic Club in New Jersey.
New Jersey tops 100k online gambling accounts
The New Jersey DGE has released their latest data reports which show the total number of online gambling accounts created in New Jersey since the late November launch now stands at 109,946. This is an increase of roughly 18,000 accounts over the past week, demonstrating that online gambling in NJ is far from reaching a saturation point.
It should be noted that these numbers represent accounts created and not individuals, as New Jersey residents are permitted to open an account at each online gaming site. We also don’t know how many of these accounts are active or have deposited money and actually gambled online.
Chris Grove of OnlinePokerReport.com has authored a detailed breakdown of the statistics, as well as offering up some of his own insights on why the trend will continue to be positive for New Jersey.
Golden Nugget to reopen brick & mortar poker room
After gaining the approval of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement to launch their online casino and poker room (the Golden Nugget has launched their online casino but is holding back on the rollout of the online poker room), the Golden Nugget is ready to give their live poker room another go, with the Nugget announcing last week that it will be reopening their poker room, which has been closed since October.
The room has been redesigned and renovated, and opened on the day after Christmas, December 26. From the pictures available, the new poker room looks extremely spacious with plenty of room in between poker tables and even features a sitting area near the signup desk. Several pictures are available of the room on the Golden Nugget’s Facebook page.
It’s likely that the Golden Nugget will use their brick & mortar and online poker rooms for joint marketing campaigns once they go live with online poker.
We thought you should know…
- Party Poker NJ and the charity Hometown Heroes are getting together for a series of online poker charity tournaments benefitting the Restore the Shore charity. You can find more details about this six tournament series where 50% of the prize-pool will go to the Restore the Shore charity at OnlinePokerReport.com.
- Betfair has begun a media blitz in the Garden State, but will it be enough for the site to gain some type of foothold in the market? Currently Betfair’s traffic is nonexistent.
- The Borgata has announced the schedule for the 2014 Borgata Winter Poker open tournament series, with online qualifiers now running at BorgataPoker.com.
