If you thought Atlantic City was done creating new New Jersey gambling sites, you were sadly mistaken.
Two new NJ online casinos
The two land-based casinos that are set to launch this spring or summer — Ocean Resort Casino and Hard Rock AC — are getting into the online gambling business, too.
The companies behind the two resorts have applied for online gambling licenses. Given they are both likely to get their land-based gaming licenses, getting the online licenses next to those should be a formality.
For those getting up to speed: Ocean Resort is the former Revel, while Hard Rock is the former Trump Taj Mahal.
What will the new NJ online gambling sites look like?
For one of the casinos, we know a lot. For the other, not so much.
Ocean Resort already partnered with online supplier GAN. That’s the company that powers the Betfair (now FanDuel NJ) online casino that’s already operating in New Jersey. So you can get a pretty good idea of what to expect by heading over there.
For Hard Rock AC’s parent company — Hard Rock International — this is the first foray into regulated online gambling. Hard Rock has stuck to the land-based gaming industry for now. But its entry into the New Jersey market made it almost a necessity to offer online casino as well.
As such, we still don’t know who will power Hard Rock’s online casino. It could be someone already in the market, or maybe a platform provider we haven’t seen yet.
Will either casino have online poker? Right now, the answer is probably not.
But if the owners of Hard Rock AC want to get into iPoker in other states down the road, a launch in NJ would make sense.
Timeline for launch?
That one is up in the air right now, too.
While it seems safe to assume that both will get licenses, regulators probably won’t rush it. New Jersey has created the gold standard for iGaming regulation in the United States, so the Department of Gaming Enforcement is sure to make sure every “t” is crossed in vetting the two companies that will be offering online casinos.
Sometime this year seems like a safe bet, but whether it’s before or after the launch of the physical resorts and casinos is up in the air.
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Will these be among the best NJ online casinos?
It will be a steep climb for the two casinos to match the performance of the many websites that are already in the market and have been for years. Golden Nugget, for example, has a sizable lead over the rest of the established market, to the tune of nearly $2 million more in revenue each month.
But it’s certainly possible these new offerings could quickly reach the upper echelon of the best NJ online casinos in terms of quality.
As Hard Rock’s first entry into iGaming, it will want to get it right. It could have opportunities for legal online casinos in other states down the road.
But the bottom line is we’ll have to wait and see what these new online casinos will look like and how they’ll perform. But if you’re an online gambler, new choices are on the way.