Following his disheartening veto of a bill which would have legalized online gambling within his state, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie may be ready to take another look.
Far from being in opposition to the issue, Christie apparently is in favor of bringing legal internet gaming into the Garden State. With states such as Iowa and Nevada considering their own versions of the issue, the race to legislation is on.
According to a statement issued by State Senator Raymond Lesniak, “While the Governor expressed concern with some aspects of the bill today, he’s committed to the general idea that we have to expand gaming product in order to bring our gaming industry back from the brink of fiscal insolvency. I’m encouraged that he’s expressed an interest to work together to maintain the core idea behind Internet wagering while making sure that such operations cannot be hijacked by unscrupulous operators.”
While estimates vary, the fact of the matter is that, with regulation, New Jersey would be set to earn a substantial chunk of revenue. Some studies have claimed the gains to be as much as $350 million in new taxes to go along with 57,000 jobs. Direct income to those employed could reach as high as $470 million.
“We need to work as quickly as possible to bring this bill back to the Governor’s Desk, and position Atlantic City to become the Silicon Valley of the high-tech gaming sector. New Jersey can still become the first state in the nation to offer legalized Internet wagering, and by leading the way, we position the Garden State to reap the benefits of getting in on the ground floor of a multi-million dollar market.”
The inherent deficiencies in intra-state poker are readily apparent. While state residents would indeed be able to compete in legitimate real-money games in their homes, the field of competition would, by definition, be limited to players within New Jersey borders. This would probably result in higher rake among online poker players, in order to pay operation expenses.
However, most of the negatives here are overwhelmingly eliminated by the positives. Once the US has an effective proving ground for online gaming, the path to nationwide legalization will be laid open.