Pokerstars plans big investment in Atlantic City casino partner
News on 3 Oct 2013
News on 3 Oct 2013
The first fruits of the Pokerstars Atlantic City partnership with Resorts Casino Hotel emerged Wednesday with an announcement that work on a $10 million poker room is to begin as soon as Pokerstars is awarded a New Jersey online gambling licence.
Company spokesman William J. Pascrell III told The Press of Atlantic City: “As soon as the license is in hand, they’re ready to start building.”
The new poker room is seen as a way of drawing online gamblers to Resorts to play in live poker tournaments, which in turn generate interest in poker online. Resorts hasn’t had live poker since early 2010.
“PokerStars is committed to investing significant resources to put in a brand new poker room at Resorts Casino Hotel. In addition to the poker room, they are committed to driving traffic to Atlantic City through their marketing,” Pascrell said.
This and other Pokerstars plans are set to generate “hundreds” of new jobs in Atlantic City, said Pascrell, but he emphasised that plans are conditional on Pokerstars achieving licensing status for the coming implementation of internet gambling in Atlantic City – the Isle of Man company clearly learned hard lessons from the Atlantic Club debacle that cost it so dearly .
If Pokerstars is awarded a licence, it will immediately hire 50 Americans to install the systems needed to launch Internet gambling in Atlantic City, Pascrell revealed, adding that the company wants to set up its North American headquarters in New Jersey, creating a further 150 jobs by Q2-2014.
After that, another 200 jobs be end 2014 are envisaged, dependent on the success of Internet gambling and whether multistate compacts are formed to turn online wagering into a nationwide system, Pascrell said.
The PokerStars.com and PokerStars.eu websites are operated overseas under licenses from the Isle of Man and Malta governments, respectively. Pokerstars also holds separate government licenses in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Italy, Spain and Germany, the company said.
Pascrell noted that Pokerstars remains interested in acquiring an Atlantic City casino, but that the Isle of Man company is not yet in serious negotiations to buy a casino and has not set its sights on any particular property.
“They’re willing to talk to all of the various casinos that are for sale,” Pascrell said.
The opening of a Pokerstars pokjer room at Resorts could give a useful boost to the land casino’s fortunes. Resorts saw its gambling revenue increase nearly 12 percent in August and 6 percent in July compared to the same period in 2012, reports the Press of Atlantic City. Overall, the number of customer visits to Resorts rose 25 percent May through August.
