New Jersey Looking at Intrastate Online Gambling

While the federal government is slowing grinding away at regulating online gambling and the courts deciding that regulating online gambling will be left up to individual states to decide, several states have been trying to work something out including Florida, California and New Jersey.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has come up with two expansions to help save the New Jersey gambling industry and hopefully help bring his state much needed revenue. Both proposals though have brought heated discussions, intrastate Internet gambling and sports betting through the state’s casinos.

The new plan revealed Monday would help AC casinos and hopefully reverse the declines being felt especially over the last two years. The plan would also help local racetracks, a point that until now the AC casinos have been against. The compromise seems to be something that the casinos can now live with, giving the racetracks rights to have slot machines and in return get online gambling and sports betting.

According to Gaming Analyst Steve Schwartz, “This was a historic first step in the US when it comes to Internet gambling regulations. If New Jersey lawmakers were to actually move forward with this plan, and pass legislation, it would not be long before other states started doing the same.”

Sports betting is currently illegal outside of Nevada and Delaware but is a billion dollar industry, online gambling has been reportedly worth millions of dollars a year in revenue to which ever state wants to tackle the issue and approve regulation. To a state whose gambling industry is seeing less and less incoming revenue and more and more competition (like from PA), this may be the best chance to see a state get through an online gambling package.

Author: GamesAndCasino