We hope this is not an April Fool’s joke. If it is, don’t blame us, we’re just the messenger. In this week’s earnings call, Amaya Gaming CEO David Baazov said that he “expects” PokerStars to finally launch in New Jersey in the third quarter of 2015. There have been many guesses during the last year or so as to when PokerStars would finally enter the Garden State, but with Amaya’s leader now coming out and specifically offering a time frame, it looks like there is a good chance that this is for real.
The poker world, particular those of us in the United States, have been waiting and waiting (and waiting) for PokerStars to finally get up and running in New Jersey. The world’s largest online poker room has been trying to get into the New Jersey market for more than two years now (at least the attempts that we know of have spanned more than two years), but every step forward was met by either a step backward or just a brick wall.
In January 2013, PokerStars entered into an agreement to buy the failing Atlantic Club casino in Atlantic City. It was interested in doing so because any online gaming site in the New Jersey must be associated with a brick-and-mortar casino, so rather than find a partner, PokerStars figured it might as well just buy a casino. It would have been very cheap, too, as the Atlantic Club was on the verge of closing. Initial reports were that it would have cost PokerStars $50 million, but later reports had that figure all the way down to $11 million. That deal, however, died in the spring of 2013.
PokerStars expressed its displeasure at Atlantic Club’s inability to close the deal, scolding the casino for risking the livelihoods of its employees. The casino was later sold to Caesars Entertainment and Tropicana Entertainment, but they were just going to strip it, rather than keep it open.
In July 2013, PokerStars went the partnership route, shaking hands with Atlantic City’s Resorts casino. It looked like this were a go at that point, but in December 2013, the New Jersey Department of Gaming Enforcement paused its licensing application for two years, mainly because of the continued involvement of PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg, who still had yet to settle legal issues with the U.S. stemming from the Black Friday indictment.
When PokerStars was purchased by Amaya Gaming last year and Scheinberg left the company, New Jersey regulators began to consider the poker room’s application once again. In October, Amaya and Resorts filed for a transactional waiver and it looked again like PokerStars’s launch was imminent, but again things got held up. Some New Jersey politicians, including State Senator Ray Lesniak, blamed Governor Chris Christie for blocking PokerStars’ license, accusing him of being in the pocket of online poker hater and Republican mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson.
So we have been in this spot before. We have heard that PokerStars will be entering the New Jersey market soon, but it has yet to happen. Perhaps this time, with the message coming straight from Amaya Gaming, the dream will actually be realized.
