Home / Poker News November 2013 / New Jersey Might Shut PokerStars Out of its Regulated Market
New Jersey Might Shut PokerStars Out of its Regulated Market
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2013-11-10 15:01
PokerStars haven’t made a secret about their intention to re-join the US market as the first opportunity arises, and indeed, they have already attempted to establish a foothold by acquiring a brick and mortar Atlantic City-based gambling operation. Those plans got shot down though and now it looks like they will not be allowed back into the US at all. At least for now, PokerStars have been omitted from among the companies scheduled for a New Jersey online gaming license.
According to New Jersey Senator Raymond Lesniak, the main sponsor of New Jersey’s online poker legislation, one of the main goals of the legalization was to get
PokerStars to set up shop in the Garden State, but the opponents of that plan have always been numerous and they haven’t made a secret about their intentions to keep the Isle-of-Man based online poker giant away from US shores either.
Indeed, the question of whether New Jersey regulators would forget about what – according to state law – had been illegal poker games offered within their markets by the world’s biggest
online poker operators, has always been something of a big unknown. According to the director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, David Rebuck, the door is still not closed: the possibility is still there for the big operators to return, but if that ever happens, it will be in exchange for fulfilling “significant conditions” among which there may be a requirement to remove people currently filling leadership positions.
PokerStars’ case is one of the most complicated in this respect, especially when it comes to founder Isai Scheinberg, who knew the legal implications of continuing his company’s US operations despite a 2006 federal ban on online gambling.
PokerStars’ $731 million settlement with the US DoJ, following Black Friday, admitted to no wrongdoing.
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