New Jersey Legalizes Internet Gambling

On Tuesday, New Jersey became the the third state in the USA to legalize online poker and now joins the ranks of Deleware and Nevada. Unlike Nevada, however, Deleware and New Jersey have also approved full casino online gambling in their states.
After two years of waiting, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie finally put ink to paper and signed the bill into law after his conditional changes were passed by the New Jersey state legislature. These included a tax increase on gambling gross revenues from 10% to 15%, and the addition of a 10 year time limit when the law will be re-examined.
Following the historic move by New Jersey, State Sen. Ray Lesniak, commented: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. It’s been an unnecessarily long road, but we finally got there. It’s a relief. I didn’t want to have to go through this a third time, but I’ll tell you I was prepared to. The governor knew I wasn’t going away, and unfortunately neither were the problems of Atlantic City.”
The senator is referring to the waning fortunes of the east coast gambling resort which has seen its revenues slide from its 2006 peak of $5.2 billion to just $3.05bn in 2012. However, before New Jersey opens up its first betting site plenty more work needs to be done, including testing software and screening applicants. The state, nevertheless, will be hoping to bring its product to the market quicker than Nevada, which approved online poker back in 2011 but has still to open its first real-money betting site. Senator Lesniak is also pushing for New Jersey to pass interstate online gambling in the future, and as he explains:
“We need to get aggressive in courting other states to hook up with us. The governor has an aggressive budget progression for revenue in Internet gaming, so to meet those one of the ways is to take the lead with other states. I expect the momentum to grow once states see the success we’re having with it in New Jersey.”