Ben Affleck is one of many celebrities known to enjoy poker, sometimes a bit too much.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement wants to legalize the hiring of celebrities to play against their customers to promote their website. If celebrity poker became possible, casinos could hire a notable person to play for real money while providing them with house money with which to gamble.
Interestingly, Atlantic City casinos do not seem interested in hiring celebs to draw customers to their web operations. They seem to believe hiring actors and other notables would be too expensive for the return on investment.
How “House Players” Work
It is a similar arrangement to what many online card rooms do with poker professionals. Many iCasinos offer “house players” and staking their gaming activities on the site. They might enter this player in a tournament and place a bounty on their head, essentially paying extra money when someone puts the pro out of the tournament. Others have them play in the ring games.
The pro poker player sometimes is promoted on the website, wears the site’s logo when they appear in live events, and makes special promotional appearances. They become a celebrity endorser for the product, but one who interacts with fans directly. Others simply constrict their online play to one site, but make no special appearances. In either case, it is standard in the industry to get poker players, who might be touted as members of “Team PokerStars” or some other group of notables.
The Dangers of Staking Players
It is a risk for Internet casinos, though. Professional card players might not take the game as seriously when it is not their money, producing skewed results or less-than-desirable efforts. When a person does not put up the money themselves, they sometimes view their stake as Monopoly money. With an easy-come, easy-go attitude, it can cost the casino dearly. Stats show that to be the case.
Databases are kept online which documents the activities of such in-house players. Gus Hansen, the famed loose-aggressive live pro, is known to have lost over $20,000,000 as an in-house player for online sites. While the losses are seen as promotional money, $20 million is a massive pile of cash, even for the biggest online companies.
Borgata Prefers Hiring Poker Pros
The leading figures in the Atlantic City online poker industry do not seem won over by the idea. When asked about the possibility of celebrity online poker, none of the executives who gave quotes said their company would take advantage of such a law.
Borgata SVP Joe Lupo said his company likes its policy of paying real professionals to play, but having the option to pay actors and other celebrities to gamble also has its possibilities. Lupo said Borgata hires pro players and “not Hollywood celebrities, but that’s not to say we wouldn’t.”
Caesars Commends the Efforts of the State
Seth Palansky of Caesars Entertainment said his company is not likely to use the option, at least until the player pool increases. New Jersey currently is not a part of the interstate poker compact that Nevada and Delaware has. If states like Pennsylvania or California offered Internet poker and signed on to the compact — and New Jersey followed suit — then the player pools might be large enough to warrant such an investment.
For the time being, the player pools probably do not warrant hiring Hollywood stars to gamble. Seth Palansky praised the state’s lawmakers for trying to help casinos boost their revenue stream. He said, “We do commend the efforts of the state to add opportunities to better engage consumers in internet gaming.”
Brainstorming Ideas to Save the Atlantic City Casinos
If the Atlantic City casinos fail, no one can say the State of New Jersey did not support them. The DGE is the only agency in the United States to have licensed PokerStars, because it might help the Atlantic City casinos. Gov. Chris Christie has spent millions of dollars on legal bills to press the case for legalized sports betting at Monmouth Park — and eventually Atlantic City casinos. Now the DGE is setting policies to help those casinos draw customers to their business, whether those casinos want to do that or not.
Of course, if Steve Sweeney has his way and approves North Jersey casino gambling, people will complain that New Jersey did not support the native AC casino industry enough. Those people will be wrong, though.
