Wynn resorts applies for online licence in New Jersey

Teaming up with other companies would be Wynn’s fastest route into the state market. Wynn and AAPN agreed to collaborate back in September last year in an arrangement which envisioned online operations in both Nevada and New Jersey.

That agreement would see the partners using the Caesars Entertainment land presence in Atlantic City as the place to locate its servers.
With the Virgin-Gamesys-Tropicana Atlantic City  alliance due to launch on the New Jersey online gambling scene this Friday,  the competition is heating up, and observers expect the level of marketing activity to substantially increase this year.

Once Wynn has achieved licensing, and there appears to be little reason for the regulator to refuse to grant this, the competition for New Jersey players will become even more intense, challenging the present domination of the market by Borgata-Bwin and Caesars-888, who respectively hold 30 percent of the online casino market and 59 percent of online poker, and 23 percent casino and 38 percent poker for Caesars.

The application filed Jan. 10 is a joint application with AAPN, also known as the All American Poker Network, and Caesars Interactive Entertainment, which holds the online gambling permits for Atlantic City’s Bally’s and Caesars casinos. The application follows a partnership announcement last September that competitors, Caesars and Wynn, had plans to work together.

Seth Palansky, a spokesman for Caesars Interactive, said the existing plan calls for Caesars to host Wynn’s servers in Atlantic City. Caesars Interactive is already working with AAPN, the parent company of 888 Holdings, a Gibraltar-based firm offering high-profile web betting in Europe.

“It’s known that we’re giving Wynn Interactive the ability to use our license in New Jersey,” Palansky said. “Obviously, we don’t own our own software, and it gives them the ability to open in New Jersey.”Asked how long it might be before Wynn launches a website, Palansky said he had “no idea” of the timeline.
Wynn’s company Wynn Resorts oversees his share of the industry on the Las Vegas Strip and in the gambling hub of Macau, but he was long tied to Atlantic City. He helped to develop the now shuttered Atlantic Club Casino Hotel that opened in 1980 as the Golden Nugget.

Until late last year, Wynn was also competing for a license to build Philadelphia’s second casino. He abandoned his plans in November, citing increased competition in the region resulting from New York’s successful casino referendum. A month later, Wynn posted an advertisement calling for a Philadelphia-based director of online gaming products, spurring speculation that the position could be related to New Jersey Internet gambling.
Wynn has disappointed Atlantic City in the past. In the 1990s he had plans to develop a casino in the Marina District, but that project fizzled. In 2007, he also considered building “Wynn Atlantic City,” at the resort’s former municipal airport, Bader Field. That plan died when the city’s plans to sell the site did not materialize.

The application filed this month is not the first sign of Wynn’s interest in New Jersey’s online gambling market. In August, Wynn Interactive applied for a casino service license. The Division of Gaming Enforcement has also granted a request to seal the company’s organizational structure. That request also extends to parent company Wynn Resorts, according to state documents.