New Jersey Residents Might Soon Be Playing Candy Crush for Real Money
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement is seeking proposals from game developers to conduct real-money betting on skill-based games. Games like “Candy Crush Saga” from King Digital Entertainment soon might be played legally for real money.
Gaming analysts believe such an industry has enormous money-making potential. Opponents of legalized gambling fear such betting could become highly addictive, especially in an age when smartphones and tablet computers are becoming pervasive. New Jersey, which hopes to bolster its struggling gambling industry, sees skill games as a lucrative new source of revenue.
DGE Are “Willing and Able” to License Skill Gaming
David Rebuck, director of New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement, told ABC News, “More and more, we’ve been watching the social gaming arena and hearing about the opportunities it presents. We thought, ‘Wait a minute: why aren’t these companies coming to us?’ We are ready, willing and able, under existing law, to deal with this. This is not theoretical anymore; this is real.”
Gamblit Gaming is a startup which adds gambling elements to social games. Eric Meyerhofer, the CEO of Gambling Gaming, estimates the U.S. market at $8 billion to $10 billion a year.
Meyerhofer told ABC, “Casual games are played in such abundance across such a wide demographic. We think there’s quite a large market for this.”
Widespread Demographic
The “wide demographic” Meyerhofer discussed is why skill gaming for real money has such potential. Take a look at the games your Facebook friends play on Facebook to know how widespread social gaming is.
Notice the wide range of people who play social games, too: business professionals, housewives, slackers, single moms, sports fans. Name any modern American type and they might enjoy going on a social networking site and competing against friends.
How Skill Gaming Works
Skill gaming for real money likely would work similar to the heads-up events in daily fantasy sports sites. Two people would join a player-vs-player contest at a particular game. Each would pay a stake, while the gaming website would take a small cut (“juice”) of the action for hosting a fair competition.
As an example, say that each gambler in a heads-up skill game competition paid $5 to enter the contest. Then imagine the website operators took $1 as juice. The winner of the contest would win $9. It would essentially be a gamble with a 90% payback percentage.
Skill Game Professionals
People who lost regularly could lose a bunch of money, but someone good enough at the game would be able to make money consistently. No doubt, professional skill game players would emerge. Take any video game which is played online in a community and imagine how much money the top ranked players would make.
Skill Gaming in New Jersey
In New Jersey, licensing would be quite similar to the licensing process used for online casinos and online poker sites. Any skill game web operator licensed in New Jersey would need to partner with one of the 7 casinos in Atlantic City (assuming Trump Taj Mahal closes in November). In that case, there likely would be 5 to 7 online skill gaming websites which accepted New Jersey players.
It should be noted that players would have to be inside New Jersey to gamble on licensed skill games. Federal laws would not be breached, though if several states legalized such gambling, they might form interstate skill gaming compacts to increase their player pool. At present, Nevada is considering legalizing such games. Internationally, both England and Mexico are considering legalization of skill gambling.
Addictive Nature of Skill Games
Skill game players already have the ability to spend money on such games. At present, social games are free, but players can buy extra chances or in-game equipment by spending real cash.
Ashley Feinberg, a staff writer for Gizmodo, spent a month playing under the current system. She spent $286 on re-buys and add-ons, and says the gaming encouraged such spending.
Feinberg said, “It’s all very high-reward. You get sucked in and there’s this big reward and then it goes away and you keep trying to get it back. Unless you actually seek out how much you’re actually spending on this, it goes like nothing. It feels like Monopoly money.”
Latest Bid to Save Atlantic City Gaming
No doubt, such gaming will be controversial. New Jersey might be hedging its bets on its most recent challenge to the sports gambling federal law, PASPA. If sports betting cannot help Atlantic City survive, then the Division of Gaming Enforcement and Chris Christie might use skill gaming as a fallback position. In the end, it might be the better bet, anyway.
