- Six of the seven casinos that participated in the soft launch that began Thursday were approved to offer a full slate of casino games including online poker.
- The Golden Nugget remains restricted to testing.
In a conference call on Monday, David Rebuck, director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement announced that the state would go ahead with the planned launch of internet gaming to the general public following a successful five day testing period.
Six of the seven casinos that participated in the soft launch that began Thursday were approved to offer a full slate of casino games including online poker.
The Golden Nugget remains restricted to testing. Rebuck indicated that that it was the Golden Nugget’s decision to continue on with the test phase. Improving the customer experience is the goal of the additional testing time and it expects to fully launch within a week, according to a tweet from John Brennan.
Though the full launch has been approved, the soft launch period was not without its challenges. Overzealous geolocation restrictions prevented some physically with the state from participating in real-money games, but there were no confirmed cases of players outside of New Jersey borders accessing online gaming: A tradeoff the DGE and operators are willing to accept in the early stages of the program.
Rebuck also spoke of the difficulty players had depositing funds onto the newly regulated gaming sites with companies such as Bank of America and PayPal refusing to process gaming transactions and even Visa and MasterCard customers—who have publically stated they will process igaming transactions—experiencing denials.
Officially the igaming program in New Jersey will open to the public at midnight, but for all intents and purposes the soft launch has concluded and the new era of online gaming in New Jersey has begun.
Full list of poker rooms and networks
- PartyPoker NJ: shared liquidity network with two skins – PartyPoker.com and BorgataPoker.com.
- Ongame NJ: Launching with BetfairCasino.com; GoldenNuggetPoker.com will join the network and share liquidity when it launches next week.
- AAPN is launching with its flagship 888.com.
- WSOP.com using 888 software but independent from AAPN.
- UltimatePoker.com: independent, using its proprietary software.
