Trump’s Taj Mahal Announces Plans to Launch NJ Online Gambling Site
Donald Trump may not be the type of person one would expect to back online gambling with such vigor, certainly not after fellow GOP backer Sheldon Adelson’s barrage of anti-online-gambling campaigns. As it turns out, their opinions couldn’t be more varied. Trump has made it known that he intends to launch his own internet gaming site in New Jersey by way of a contract between his New Jersey based Taj Mahal Casino and Ultimate Gaming.
According to reports, the negotiations are complete and the ink has already dried on a new deal between Ultimate Gaming and Taj Mahal. This could mean big things for the future of the Garden State as it creates a link between its own impending online gambling industry and that of Nevada, where Ultimate Gaming is based. Nevada’s very first – and at present, only – online gambling site, Ultimate Poker, is owned and operated by the Ultimate Gaming group.
The governor of New Jersey put his signature on a bill that legalized online gambling – provided that all licensees are located within the city limits of its gambling mecca, Atlantic City – in March of this year. The state’s gaming control board has been working fervently to get the ball rolling ever since. New Jersey’s ambition isn’t just to officially enter the online gambling market this year, but to establish cross-border relations with other legalized states to build an interstate gaming network.
This new deal could give Ultimate Gaming access to approximately 12 million players across Nevada and New Jersey, not to mention innumerable residents of neighboring states who would need only to cross the border into New Jersey from major gaming states like New York and Pennsylvania to participate in its online gaming opportunities. Not only that, but New Jersey has legalized most forms of online casino gambling, not just poker as is the case in Nevada. While we know that Ultimate Gaming will be bringing its proven online poker platform to New Jersey, it just may give the company an opportunity to expand into the online casino gaming realm while moonlighting outside of Nevada.
If recent reactions are any indication, Adelson is likely reeling with resentment at the news. Sheldon Adelson is the CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which is responsible for a global network of casinos that includes the affluent Venetian Resort, the Pallazo Resort and the famous Sands Expo and Convention Center, all of which are located in Las Vegas, as well as properties in Pennsylvania, Singapore and Macau. Adelson has vehemently opposed legalization of online gambling in the United States, based on ‘moral grounds’, which has caused a great deal of ridicule from all over the industry.
For Donald Trump, however, legalization of online gambling across several US states – currently Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware, with a few more working their way towards legislative regulation – is just another avenue for appeasing the masses while compounding his incalculable wealth. According to a recent timeline devised by New Jersey’s gaming regulators, the soft date in which the state expects to have its first online gambling operations up and running is November 26, 2013.