New Jersey online poker and casino games opened to the public earlier this week. Six of the seven Atlantic City casinos that were issued licenses were able to pass the testing phase. They were:
- Bally’s
- Borgata
- Caesars
- Tropicana
- Trump Plaza
- Trump Taj Mahal
Golden Nugget experienced issues and was not able to complete the soft launch. It is still restricted to limited play.
There are 12 websites that are approved are:
- Borgatapoker.com (poker only)
- Borgatacasino.com (casino only)
- Partypokernj.com (poker and casino)
- Harrahscasino.com (casino only)
- WSOP.com (poker only)
- US.888.com (poker and casino)
- US.888poker.com (poker only)
- US.888casino.com (casino only)
- Caesarscasino.com (casino only)
- Tropicanacasino.com (casino only)
- Virgincasino.com (casino only)
- Betfaircasino.com (casino only)
- Ucasino.com (casino only, poker forwards to Ultimatepoker.com)
Issues Affecting Players
Players have experienced three major issues. One has been payment processing, specifically Visa deposits. Delaware and Nevada players have also reported a high rate of declines with Visa transactions. Mastercard, electronic checks and PayNearMe have a high rate of success. Another popular deposit option in New Jersey is cash deposits at Atlantic City casino cages. The property that is licensed is required to accept cash deposits under New Jersey internet gaming regulations.
Several New Jersey sites are using geolocation technology that is different than what is used in Delaware and New Jersey. Many sites are using wifi positioning to ensure players are located within the borders of New Jersey at the time of play. There have been a number of player issues associated with this technology. Patrons must be able to see at least two other routers on a wireless connection for wifi positioning to be effective. Players in rural areas or those on over an acre of land may have issues with this requirement. It is not limited to the suburbs. Players in urban areas are reporting dropped connections during play or outright failures when trying to login.
Another complaint from players is related to the geolocation. Players may not have any remote access software running at the time of connection. This prevents players from being able to access New Jersey sites when outside of the state. There is no master list of programs that need to be removed so this has left many players confused about why they are unable to play.
Even with these issues it seems New Jersey’s internet gaming industry can be declared a success. According to Pokerscout, New Jersey online poker rooms peaked over 700 players. This does not include Betfair, which has limited traffic, or patrons accessing online casino games. Nevada peaked at about 450 players.
The ranking of New Jersey online poker sites in terms of traffic is:
- Party Poker/Borgata
- WSOP
- 888
- Ultimate Poker
Betfair is not represented on Pokerscout. It appears that it would place last.
The payment processing and geolocation issues will improve over time. For now, New Jersey players that can access the system are happy to finally have online poker again.
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