All change for gambling in Jersey

Just in case you hadn’t noticed; it’s now legal to gamble in an online casino in the state of New Jersey.

The state becomes the third to legalise online gambling, joining Delaware and Nevada – but it’s by far the most significant so far with its population of nine million people. You have to live in the state and be in the state – and be able to prove that is the case – in order to be able to gamble online.

Jersey’s big experiment with online gambling is in itself, one almighty gamble. Further legislation on down the road may see operations which are physically based in New Jersey competing for international business – and this is one enormous business.

And all this means greater tax revenues of course. Live casino gambling in Atlantic City already generates somewhere in the region of $2.8 billion each year. Now, the state’s decision to legalize online gambling will help provide a boost for a gaming market that has suffered a decline. Analysts are predicting revenues in the first year alone of somewhere between $200 million and $300 million, though this is way below the $1.2 billion Governor Christie predicted.

Nevertheless, 13 online gambling websites sponsored by six different Atlantic City casinos have already received the go-ahead to open online to the New Jersey public. They each started trying to pull the gamblers through their virtual doors by advertising their online presence on Tuesday 26^th November 2013; permitted to do so by the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement.

This could be the thin end of the wedge. If other states see Jersey’s tax revenues climb without too much of a deleterious effect on the state’s population – then other states will surely follow. That said; the change in the law certainly is not without its vociferous opponents. The anti-gambling lobby in the United States has, almost by tradition, been far stronger than in other developed economies.

Opponents of the state government-sponsored gaming are worried that more people will become addicted to gambling – particularly young adults who already spend a lot of time on social media sites and who already play free games on Facebook and other sites, though not for real money.

They argue that there has been something of a convergence over recent years between social media, social gaming and real money games and that the relaxation of regulation in New Jersey will open the flood gates to susceptible young people to take up what they see as an unhealthy obsession.

But there are limits in place; when any individual gambler’s lifetime of deposits to an Internet gaming account reaches $2,500, that casino must block further gambles until the gambler in question acknowledges that she or he has hit the $2,500 threshold and is aware of the gambler’s helpline: 1-800-GAMBLER. Critics point out, however, that the threshold applies to each individual casino, so isn’t a real limit.

Anyway, whatever the critics say, it’s already happening – and the big change for Jersey may yet grow to a big change for America; watch this space.