Official Date for the Launch of iGaming in the Garden State

State Senator Raymond Lesniak of New Jersey has long been a top supporter of legal online poker and gambling, and unlike his federal-level peers, he actually managed to have the games legalized in his jurisdiction. Lesniak, like so many others before him on the federal level, was always an optimist. In fact, he often proved to be over-optimistic in the predictions he made regarding the actual timetable of the legalization process in the Garden State.

With that in mind, it was understandable that many of the experts rolled their eyes back in February, when he announced November as the approximate time of the launch of legalized and fully regulated online poker and gambling games. It turned out though that he was right this time around: the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement sent word to casinos about a week ago regarding the official start date of November 26.

For Lesniak, seeing his long-pampered pet-project take shape was obviously a moment of fulfillment. He said he envisioned the creation of a New Jersey online gaming dynasty the beginnings of which we may be witnessing in November 26.

With the above said notice, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement also released a set of amended regulations regarding the actual implementation of the games. The initial regulations had been released back in June, and these new ones were amended to address some of the troubling issues that the PPA (Poker Players Alliance) had pointed out back then.

The login process – as specified in the old regulations – was too cumbersome and intricate, and therefore likely to prove a major impediment for the operators looking to lure players to their virtual tables. Per the amended rules though, the process has been simplified:
players are now only required to provide one kind of strong authentication together with their password/username. Strong authentication can be an additional password, an answer to a question, biometric data or a special electronic token.

Another issue addressed by the newly amended regulations was that of the dormant accounts. According to the old regulations, accounts dormant for a year would automatically forfeit their balance to the operator. The amended regulations stipulate that the owners of the dormant accounts have to be notified before the forfeiture of their funds.