New Jersey was under pressure for a couple of years to enter into an online poker shared liquidity agreement with Nevada and Delaware. This was because Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey were the only states to have legalized online gambling. The online poker markets in Nevada and Delaware were struggling due to a sluggish market and they wanted to join forces with New Jersey which had the biggest online poker market.

New Jersey finally agreed to enter an online poker shared liquidity agreement in October. State gaming regulators and iGaming operators are putting together the necessary regulations and software changes that will enable them to launch online poker shared liquidity operations during 2018.

New iGaming Bill Pushes For Shared Liquidity

Senator Raymond Lesniak has been one of the key campaigners for the legalization of online gambling in New Jersey. He threw his hat into the ring to become the next Governor of New Jersey but that did not work out well for him, leading to him announcing his retirement. Senator Lesniak’s last day in office will be on Jan 9, 2018 and he wants to use his last month in office to continue to push for the expansion of online gambling.

Lesniak has introduced a new bill called S3536 which pushes for international shared liquidity. Before New Jersey could sign an interstate liquidity agreement, state legislators considered the possibility of tying up with international markets to expand the online poker market in the Garden State.

However New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE) director David Rebuck made it clear that this would not be possible because Atlantic City currently has exclusive rights to host internet gaming equipment such as servers. If international liquidity was to take place, then internet gaming servers would have to be located outside of Atlantic City.

Bill S3536 wants New Jersey to make the change and allow internet equipment to be allowed outside the boundaries of Atlantic City. This would allow the Garden State to then consider international online shared poker liquidity agreements with foreign markets. New Jersey and the United Kingdom (UK) have reportedly held discussions in the past of moving forward with a shared liquidity agreement and the passing of the new bill would give the two markets the permission to do so.

NJDGE In Favor Of International Shared Liquidity

Senator Lesniak has very little time to push for his bill to be passed. It has to clear the New Jersey Senate and then go through the House of Representatives. Once this is done, it will be up to Governor Chris Christie to sign the bill and give it final approval. Should the Governor not take any action for 45 days, the bill will automatically get cleared.

The bill pushes for international shared liquidity as it will boost the online gambling market in the state and bring in more revenue to the state coffers in the form of gambling taxes. The NJDGE is apparently very much in favor of the new bill since it does not have any controversial elements to it and it will further expand New Jersey’s growing iGaming market.

Tags: Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey, NJDGE, Online Poker, Pennsylvania, S3536, shared liquidity, UK

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 6th, 2017 at 3:04 am and is filed under Poker Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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