New Player Looks to Shake Up New Jersey Online Gambling Market

Home » Poker News » New Player Looks to Shake Up New Jersey Online Gambling Market

Friday, August 2nd, 2013 | Written by Shane Larson

Just when the pending market for online gambling in New Jersey seemed like it couldn’t get any more complex, a completely new potential entrant is forcing many to rewrite their narratives for the state.

That entrant: 2Up Gaming PLC, who made quite a splash last week with the announcement of their intent to buy their way into New Jersey.

“2UP has been working diligently for the past 12 months assembling the finest technology and strategy necessary to be a global leader in the i-Gaming marketplace,” said 2UP’s CEO Marino Sussich, adding that “the United States launch of 2UP’s online gaming products will significantly add to our growth.”

How would 2UP enter the New Jersey market?

The way that New Jersey’s online gambling regulations are structured basically limit participation to entities that operate a land-based casino in the state. Following from that, 2UP has two ways to break in – either they build a casino from scratch or they buy a controlling interest in an existing casino.

While building a casino from the ground up is certainly possible, it’s not clear that it’s a plausible path. Building would certainly take quite a few turns of the calendar simply on the construction side, let alone the regulatory compliance work to be done after the casino itself is erected.

If your goal is to get in on the ground floor of New Jersey’s online gambling market, therefore, building seems like the long way to go about it.

But purchasing a casino would circumvent many (albeit not all) of those delays. Among New Jersey’s 12 casinos, two – The Atlantic Club Casino and Revel – are frequently mentioned as takeover targets.

The ACC, as you may recall, remains embroiled in a legal dispute with PokerStars over the all-but-collapsed attempt by the online poker room to take over the Atlantic City casino.

In addition to the ACC and Revel, it’s also been reported that Trump Plaza and the Showboat properties are also potentially available for purchase.

2UP, then, should suffer from no lack of available properties if they decide to pursue the acquisition route.

Company has tight timeline for a deal

The announcement from 2UP that it had tentatively secured over $300mm in financing to back its efforts came with an interesting caveat – the financing won’t be official until early September. That’s also when representatives of 2UP have indicated that they will announce a firmer direction for their New Jersey plans.

Even at an accelerated pace, it seems unlikely that 2UP will be among the operators who launch when New Jersey online gambling goes live this November. New Jersey regulators have set a end-of-July deadline for online gambling partnerships to be submitted. And 2UP would need to go through a separate licensing process to take control of an Atlantic City casino – a process that could easily stretch on for months.

Bookmark our poker news section for continuing coverage of this story.

More about 2UP Gaming

2UP is something of an unknown quantity in the online gambling industry.

Formed in 2011, the company’s original focus was a simple coin toss betting game – hence the name 2UP. That game has expanded into a broader online gambling presence that grew to include poker and casino games in early 2013.