The world’s most popular online poker site, PokerStars, will be soon making its long-awaited return to the US in early 2016. It will be establishing its online poker room in New Jersey and officially offering real money online poker to American customers again, most likely by next January of next year.
Regulators in the state of New Jersey approved the partnership between Amaya, the parent company of PokerStars, and the land-based New Jersey casino, Resorts AC – a move which allowed PokerStars to return to business in the USA. The law allowing online gambling and poker within New Jersey’s borders was passed in 2013, with the pre-requisite being that the online casino must also have or be partnered with a U.S. operated land casino.
It has been over four years since the last poker hand was played on PokerStars in the United States, since the company pulled out before 2011’s infamous Black Friday incident. New Jersey poker fans will soon be able to get a slice of the poker action offered by the largest poker site on the internet, which averages 33,000 cash players – it’s nearest rival having a fraction of this, at around 3,000.
Real money play will only be accessible to players if they are visiting or living within the state of New Jersey. PokerStars initially tried to purchase the Atlantic Club but this partnership unfortunately fell through and the site eventually struck a deal with the Resorts Hotel Casino in Atlantic City instead. Under the new agreement, PokerStars is to establish a $10 million poker room in the Resorts Casino. Players will be able to make live deposits and withdrawals at Resorts for both PokerStars NJ and Full Tilt NJ.
The CEO of Amaya, David Baazov stated that he expected PokerStars to be licensed and operational in New Jersey by the third quarter of 2015, however there have been a number of factors causing delays to the process. The rumoured reasons for the delay included stipulations that PokerStars must sever ties with a certain number of previous employees (who have failed to show the required “good character, honesty and integrity”) as well as insufficient software testing of the new site and the requirement for PokerStars to return pre-Black Friday unclaimed balances for previous customers.
Two existing poker sites are already operating in NJ – 888 NJ and Partypoker NJ who both share a 50/50 split of the current market. When PokerStars NJ comes online for full real-money play in January 2016 it is believed that it will son dominate the online poker industry in the state.
