On Friday, November 8, 2013, the state of New Jersey secured its first online gambling licenses to several international gambling companies, helping them win an entry ticket to the lucrative United States gambling market in America.
The state of New Jersey is the third state to legalize online gambling, following in the footsteps of Nevada and Delaware. Other states that plan to pass new legislation are California, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Legalized online gaming means that anyone within the state’s borders can play on certain websites, a location that can be verified using the IP address, among other methods.
Not all online casinos are approved by each state, the state of New Jersey is a special case in which online gambling authorities have given “transition tolerance” to companies including 888 Holding, bwin.party and Caesar’s Entertainment. This transition tolerance allows companies like bwin.party to participate in the online gambling market in New Jersey.
It was not very easy for bwin.party to achieve this transition tolerance, as the founders of PartyPoker, Ruth Parasol and Russ DeLeon, had to work hard to be able to comply with the conditions imposed by the state of New Jersey. PokerStars was one of the online companies that did not get approval, because, going back to 2006, PokerStars continued to illegally provide its online gambling services as Congress had passed a law banning such games. There is a rumor that if PokerStars wants to have its share of the New Jersey online gambling market, then it will have to use a strategy similar to that used by bwin.party.