New Jersey Online Gambling Brief: A Celeb Makes an Appearance, Caesars Dropping AC Property?
Another intriguing week is now in the books as New Jersey’s online gambling industry moves towards its six-month anniversary.
One of the biggest stories is that opposition to Sheldon Adelson’s efforts to ban online gambling continues to grow and continues to become more vocal.
In this week’s New Jersey Online Gambling Brief we’ll start off by filling you in on the latest people to come out against Adelson’s crusade, before we move on to some Brick & Mortar headlines and talk about a potential closing of a casino property in Atlantic City.
So keep reading for more details on these topics and more.
CEI taking on Adelson
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) was one of 10 Conservative / Libertarian groups that signed on to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee in opposition of Sheldon Adelson’s proposed online gambling ban, and their opposition has only increased from there, as CEI has not let up on the matter.
Since signing the letter the think-tank has penned two separate columns on this issue, the first by CEI fellow Michelle Minton (a longtime proponent of online gambling legislation) and the second by Christine Hall who wrote that an Internet gambling would be a “bad bet.”
Adelson will of course scoff at these attacks from hi right flank, but lawmakers will have to think twice before taking “Adelson Bucks” in exchange for their support of online gambling ban if it means losing the backing of groups like CEI.
Is Caesars ready to drop some deadweight in AC?
Even with the shuddering of the Atlantic Club earlier this year the Atlantic City land-based casino industry is certainly supersaturated, and with mounting debt, bankruptcy rumors swirling, and four brick & mortar properties in the city Caesars is feeling the brunt of this and is expected to close one of the casinos in the near future, but will it be the casino everyone is expecting it to be? And will it be just one casino?
That’s the question that was raised by Caesars CEO Gary Loveman on a recent conference call to investors where he said the following according to Bloomberg: “We are looking at all of our options to reduce the cost of doing business here. All the businesses in A.C. are under tremendous pressure.”
Loveman went on to say,
“These markets can reach points when no new supply is indeed the right answer. In some cases reducing supply is the right answer.”
The obvious answer would be the Showboat, which is the least known of Caesars four properties, and also happens to be the only Atlantic City property that does not have a piece of the company’s online gambling pie, as Bally’s and Harrah’s are working in tandem on several online poker and casino sites, and Caesars has its own online gambling sites, WSOP.com and CaesarsCasino.com.
However, Loveman’s statements didn’t rule anything out.
The one thing to bear in mind is Caesars would not want to sell a property to someone planning on competing with them (as this doesn’t really follow along with their “Reducing supply” comments), so the more likely outcome would be a sale that saw a shuttering, a razing, or even turning the property into a non-gambling hotel.
New Jersey traffic numbers
Watch out for WSOP.com!
That’s all I have to say after taking a look at the latest data from www.pokerscout.com, data that shows WSOP.com has nearly caught Borgata / Party in terms of average cash game traffic, trailing the current wire-to-wire leader in terms of traffic by a tally of 150 players to 130 players
Also somewhat surprising is the continued slide by 888, which is now registering average cash game traffic of just 65 players (nearly half their high-water mark), but 888 did finally unveil their VIP Rewards Program (and it’s a good one) so that may bring some cash game players back to the site.
It looks like we could be headed towards a shakeup in the New Jersey online poker hierarchy, watch this space.
We thought you should know…
NJ online poker sites are not stupid
How about the balls guts on this girl. Just willing to try the old “I didn’t lose that money gambling, I’m a victim of identity theft” line.
Problem is, we live in 2014, and basically any transaction you make can be linked up to where you were, whose fingers clicked send, and what thoughts were running through your mind at the time.
Still, you kind of have to respect her hustle here, we’ve all lost money gambling and contemplated the “wasn’t me” excuse while humming along to the Shaggy song in our heads – or am I the only person who does this, in which case someone else wrote this column using my name!
Former NJ Devil finishes 2nd in charity tournament
Plenty of athletes and celebrities have been spotted at WSOP tables over the years, but few come out for smaller events unless they are really into poker, or in the case of former New Jersey Devil Ken Daneyko, really into poker and retired.
Daneyko played in the Charity tournament during the recent WPT series held at the Borgata and managed to finish in 2nd place and then went on to win a $230 side-event during the Spring Poker Open series, pocketing an impressive $14,000.
