New Jersey Internet gambling extension bill progresses

The measure makes provision for online gambling hardware such as servers to be set up outside the confines of licensed New Jersey land casinos, but still within the boundaries of Atlantic City on condition that the equipment is maintained and operated under secure conditions.

New Jersey, where it is predicted online gambling will be open to the public from November 26th, has not ruled out the possibility of extending the five ‘soft-launch’ trial period if matters run less smoothly than expected.  Prior to the official launch, New Jersey will begin the trial period on November 21st, allowing a select group of online players to test drive the systems.

Equipment must at all times remain under the control of the casino licensee or its Internet gaming affiliate. The bill was first announced earlier this year and now heads to the full Senate for consideration. An identical bill is awaiting action in an Assembly committee, reports the Press of Atlantic City.

State Senator Jim Whelan said Thursday: “Right now, a lot of casinos do not have the space required to maintain Internet gaming operations. By relocating the equipment for Internet gambling, we will give them the conditions to develop this activity properly.”

Assemblyman John Amodeo said the legislation opens up the possibility that New Jersey could host a centralised online gambling system, allowing bets to spread across state lines if New Jersey were to enter into interstate agreements.

The first two days of the soft launch will consist of eight hour windows.  Players who are interested in taking part in these sessions could be invited by the platforms that they sign up to prior to Thursday.  At present, a number of platforms have provided pre-launch sign up procedures, including PartyPokerNJ.com, Betfair’s Let’sPlayNJ.com and Borgata.com.

A spokesman for the New Jersey Gaming Enforcement Division explained that two eight hour sessions will run on November 21st and 22nd.  If all goes well, the online gambling window will run for 14 hours on November 23rd, before testing a 24/7 period on the final two days of the trial period.

Operators who were granted transactional waivers – allowing them to operate legally in New Jersey’s online gambling space until licenses are granted at a later date – will launch their platforms during the trial period. Companies which have been given the green light so far include Betfair, Ultimate Poker (Nevada’s first legal online poker site), Amaya/Ongame, 888 and Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment.

Authorities are expected to update its list of approved software providers and gaming operators before the November 21st soft launch trial date.

The division spokesperson already warned, however, that all operators will be under scrutiny during the trial period and authorities will have no problem extending the launch date if need be. “My staff will continually assess the progress of each platform provider before allowing them to open gaming to the general public on Nov. 26,” added DEG Director David Rebuck said. “The soft opening will be used to demonstrate to the division that all systems perform as required under the stress of live gaming and that operational and revenue reporting controls are effective.”