Wynn wants a NJ online gambling license
Another high-profile entrant is seeking to grab a slice of New Jersey’s soon-to-launch online gambling market.
And while that entrant – Steve Wynn – is known more for his land-based visual spectacles like the Bellagio fountains and the sweeping curve of the Las Vegas casino that bears his name, the power of his personal fortune and brand alone is enough to make him an immediate player in New Jersey’s hotly-contested online gambling industry.
Multiple sources confirm that Wynn’s company has filed for an online gambling license in New Jersey. The specifics of the application are not public at this point.
Wynn faces fundamental hurdle
But while the power of the Wynn name may be indisputable, so is a basic fact regarding online gambling in New Jersey – namely, that you must hold a license to operate a land-based casino in order to apply for a license to operate an online one. Barring that, you must enter into some sort of partnership with a licensed land-based operator, much as 888 has done with Caesars and PokerStars is seeking to do with Resorts Casino.
How Wynn will resolve this basic hurdle, and what role the company actually hopes to play in the regulated market for online gambling in New Jersey both remain unknowns at this stage in the game.
The company has applied for a license related to interactive gaming in Nevada, but was not a part of the conversation regarding regulated online gambling in Delaware.
New Jersey and Wynn have complicated relationship
Entry into New Jersey’s online gambling market would mark a return to the state for Steve Wynn. His ties to New Jersey run back into the early 1980s, when Wynn spearheaded the development of the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.
The Golden Nugget name is long gone from the site Wynn developed. In its place sits the Atlantic Club Casino. And Wynn himself has been absent from New Jersey for several years following a dispute with state regulators that saw Wynn famously declare that he would never return to the Garden State.
It’s unclear what role, if any, this history will play in Wynn’s application process, but it definitely adds an additional wrinkle to the story that isn’t present in the applications of a typical casino or vendor.
Not the first time Wynn has made an online gambling stir
This wouldn’t be the first time that Wynn’s name has come up in conversations surrounding regulated online gambling in the United States. Prior to Black Friday, credible reports emerged that Wynn was investigating the possibility of a partnership with PokerStars that would have seen the two companies collaborate on both US online poker and global online gambling.
Talk of that partnership dissolved immediately after Black Friday.
More recently, Wynn was linked to a more narrow collaboration Zynga. But talk has cooled there as well, especially after Zynga’s new boss indicated that the market for U.S. real-money online poker simply wasn’t a priority for the company.
Wynn has mixed history on issue of online gambling
While Wynn’s application for an online gambling license in New Jersey certainly signals something like support – or at least acceptance – of the inevitable role online gambling will play in the American casino market, Steve Wynn’s attitude toward online gambling has been largely ambivalent over the last decade.
On one hand, you have the company’s willingness to explore partnerships with PokerStars and Zynga, along with the application in New Jersey. But on the other you have myriad public statements from Steve Wynn questioning the value of online gambling in the U.S. and frequent reports of Wynn engaging in behind-the-scenes lobbying to block legislative attempts to regulate online gambling. And noted opponent of online gambling Sheldon Adelson has repeatedly mentioned Wynn as someone who shares a similar view to his own.
Get the latest on Wynn’s application and other US-related online poker developments in our US poker news section.
