My spin: Today should be a day of celebration, the fact that the Obama administration decided to defend what Christie views to be an unconstitutional law may have been just the push we needed for Christie to support a bill which he views questionable constitutionally.

Christie would only veto this bill for one reason: that it is unconstitutional.

Tonight, for the first time publicly, he backed away from that position by referencing the purpose of the constitutional ban (problem gambling) along with the purpose for NJ's amended exception to the ban on gambling in NJ: to preserve the economy of AC.

Having done that, either allowing this bill to become law or even signing it are both possible ("I carefully weighed the pros vs the cons"), but by not even referencing his constitutional objections, vetoing it later on the basis that it's unconstitutional really isn't.

He won't veto because of concern about problem gambling, that's likely just to be the excuse for not having signed it sooner, so after the DOJ's decision to ignore the will of the NJ people today, I'll be shocked if Christie ignores the will of the legislature here.

But, he wants sports betting in New Jersey.

Got it.

Governor Christie, with all due respect sir, I think it is a miscalculation to characterize online gambling as not being beneficial to Atlantic City. There is no direct quantifiable benefit that can be measured unless you consider that competition for players dollars are getting more and more diluted from entertainment choices closer to home.

Folks just dont want to travel, they want a reason go somewhere and be a part of something.

Making Atlantic City the East Coast hub for online qualifiers to come and play live events is beneficial to your state.

Revenues are down and knowone wants to try anything new for fear of losing even more revenues. This is the exact same mindset that doomed California Horse racing starting in the early 1990's. The owners and breeders brought pressure against bringing any other types of gambling onto racetracks. They had the perfect opportunity at the time to offer more product, more entertainment closer to home, but they balked because they didn't understand the situation outside of their own financial circles.

Sir, please dont look at online as wasting time all day. For older folks, its practical. Sure, anything gets abused these days. Do we have to ruin the benefit for the 90%, because of the 10%?

Ive been a supporter of yours here in 2+2 in the past when we had a thread picking the best VP. But I dont live in your state, just give me a reason to come and play a live event and I will.

He has concearns about people not going to AC. He just doesn't understand the benefits from gambling small and feeling comfortable with the games before heading to a casino.

I speak for myself have never been into a casino until I started playing poker online.

I'm in my early 50's, lived in NJ since '84 and have had no interest in going to AC until post '05. Now I make frequent trips there. I'm there at least 2x a month for a total of 4 days each month.

I don't think I'm the only one that is doing the same as a result of playing online first.

PM - me the details of the meeting time. I may have to free my schedule so that I can be there.

Okay .... here is the spin to argue

"ONLINE GAMING Helps AC Re-Brand

Online gaming, sponsored by an actual AC casino, HELPS Atlantic City generally:

1. Online exposure will build the Atlantic City brand internationally. AC cannnot simply fight for Pa., NY, or Md traffic, it needs to re-tool its brand and leapfrog those "local" States.

2. Online gaming addresses the problem of competition against other nearby States' emerging casino industry, to the extent it brings in international business.

3. None of the current AC casinos has any draw among nonUS markets. They may acquire some by partnering with igaming networks.

4. PokerStars, by buying the Atlantic Club (former AC Hilton) will immediately provide the Atlantic City brand with an international, good dempgraphics draw. If 888 or bwin also later enters the market by partnering with a current AC operator, that effect is magnified.

5. To the extent that the entry of an international company is contingent upon passing internet gaming, a decision to veto internet gaming effectively cuts off a channel for AC's brand to access new customers.

6. I suspect the Atlantic deal by PStars is bostered by signing the NJ Internet gaming act and hurt by its veto.

Okay, TE, figure out a way to put that argument into Christie's ear ?

(FWIW, I think allowing the bill to become law, for its general benefit to AC and NJ, is such a "no-brainer" versus a veto, I think this argument is already apparent to Christie. The delay still seems more like infighting overother NJ issues.)

I don't even think most people go to AC to gamble anymore. There's so much more to do there now than there was 10 or 15 years ago when it really was mostly about the gambling. I've taken trips down there where I didn't even sit at a gaming table the last few years. There are attractions that you can't get by sitting home.

Nice one DQ. That is a nice articulation of a good argument.

Thanks DQ

How about arguing the fact that you can regulate how much people wager online a lot more than you can in B&M Casinos? Limits can be put on how much a player can deposit on a site but in a casino people are free to spend anything they want. No one will be sitting at home with their laptop gambling their paycheck away if a system is put on place that only allows a player to deposit a certain amount per week or per month. I remember Full Tilt having limits you could put on yourself for how much you deposited. If anything online gambling is safer than going to the casino.

Found this recent study conducted at the University of Nevada titled "The Effect of Online Gaming on Commercial Casino Revenue":

http://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/c...0&context=grrj

"This study therefore provides some evidence that in an online gaming market characterized by loose regulation, and relatively easy access, online gaming will cannibalize some commercial casino revenue at a rate of 27 to 30 cents on the dollar. Policy makers and industry practitioners should consider this effect when evaluating whether or not to enter the online gaming sector...
Also, given that this study aggregated all online gaming sources, policy makers and industry practitioners should be cautious when using these estimates to evaluate the effect of a policy change to a single product. It may be the case that some online gaming products with purposeful co-marketing, such as online poker (where players can qualify for B&M tournaments through smaller online tournaments) are gross complements, leading to an increase in demand for their brick and mortar counterparts."

So I don't think that this study has any real value for or against our cause as it hedges it's conclusions with a number of unexplored variables but I thought it was worth posting. Our opponents could certainly attempt to use it to show that online gaming will significantly hurt B & M casinos which is one of Christie's major concerns.

Ask him: Why can't you realize that allowing the online gambling will only HELP the B &M casinos?? Talk to your marketing people. Online tournament satellites!! Like holy cow what you could do with those alone. What if the Borgata winter Open main event was holding ONLINE QUALIFIERS??? They'd have to build a whole new poker wing for the action.

Well he thinks online poker is a vice. Why not delve into his vice?

All you have to do is tell Christie, with rewards points earned from online poker, you can have gourmet cookie baskets and Godiva chocolates delivered to your door steps. Guarantee his mouth will start drooling and sign the bill.

If that doesn't work, bribe him with lifetime gift card to McDonalds...

If the state senate could have showed up at his office with an online poker bill instead of everything and the kitchen sink, i think the casino interests would have gone along and Christie also.

In reality this bill just creates the biggest monstrous mess of trash internet gambling sites.

They should have piloted online poker first, given poker stars a chance to get some momentum going back in AC.

I think Senator Leszniac said this will be his last try at this, hopefully they get a progressive thinker and not another brunch and silverware suit.

Thanks for the link.

i haven't read it as yet, but wonder if a business/industry which can capture/retain that 27-30% for its new online brand/channel, at the MUCH lower cost of the new online channel, might not welcome the result on its bottom line. What is called "cannibaliztion" might actually be a revenue benefit if it just moves to a lower cost of service.

Look forward to reading the study, eventually. ......

(An interesting fight has been waged along those lines for the direction/future of IGT)

Lesniak puts the pressure on Governor Christie re internet gaming bill

i cant believe i never thought of this before. your right this is probably the best way/most affected way Casinos in Ac can use online poker. if Casino Marketing people dont think of this why do they even hold the job.

Potentially true from a pure profit viewpoint. Similarly, many retailers are finding that their e-commerce business is far more cost efficient and profitable than their B & M operations. However the prospects of B & M stores diminishing over time leaving the country with ghost towns instead of thriving malls is not one that appeals to many.

Older NJ residents remember that AC was once a thriving family vacation spot 50 years ago only to eventually deteriorate into a slum. Gambling is what brought AC back. Now AC is once again threatened and the desire will be to keep that from happening. Improving casinos' bottom lines via online gambling at the potential cost of AC once again slipping into the abyss is what Christie is worried about. We have to convince him that without online gambling and the B & M incentives that will drive the extra traffic to AC history will repeat itself. Currently he seems to think otherwise.

“First, I don’t know that it really will help Atlantic City,” continued the governor. “I’m actually concerned that it may drive traffic away from Atlantic City…if people can gamble in their own homes on their laptops, why are they going to go to Atlantic City? I think that is contrary to what we are trying to accomplish here.”

This has been bothering me for a while now. In the quote above he is openly saying that he's worried about putting the rights and freedoms of the people before the foot travel into a city.

It's a little bothersome that this has become the focal point of the issue now as opposed to whether or not online poker is a game of skill or whether it will lead to increases in problem gambling (both of which have relatively easy counter arguments). It has now shifted to an argument about the economic viability of AC after making online gambling convenient for millions of people online. That's a discussion filled with more questions than answers, not to mention the absurdity of preventing people from doing something they enjoy because it's not being done in the medium that best suits them. It's like preventing people from shopping online on Amazon because you want them to go out to their local Best Buy instead.

N.J. online gaming legislation called Atlantic City 'lifeline' [lvrj.com]

In a research report, Wells Fargo Securities gaming analyst Dennis Farrell Jr., called legalized online gaming "a lifeline" to Atlantic City casinos, which have experienced six straight years of declining gaming revenues in a market that has lost more than 40 percent of its value.

(emphasis added)

While I think the name calling will have the exact opposite of the intended affect with Christie's personality, at least he says everything I'm thinking. Hoping Lesniak decides to take a run at governor someday:
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2013/0...less-14210.htm

I have a hunch that Wells Fargo report is the tipping point in favor of signing.

Please Christie! One time!!

Yes. This helps:

We believe the size of the online market could be almost half of the existing New Jersey gaming market's revenue