Life for New Jersey’s land-based and online casino operators just got a little bit more competitive with the opening of the Hard Rock International’s new Atlantic City casino. This land-based casino, that was once the Trump Taj Mahal, will be followed in short order by the launching of a new Hard Rock International online casino and sportsbook.
The Hard Rock’s online casino is currently only offering slots and table games, but no online poker and no sports betting, yet. So far, it seems likely that online poker will be offered eventually but, for the time being, the online casino operator seems to be targeting the more lucrative casino side of New Jersey’s booming online gambling market.
The new online casino will also be offering live dealer games. It’s not yet know which vendor will providing this service to the new operation.
As yet, the company is definitely planning to add a sportsbook to its online casino, but is currently awaiting approvals from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Hard Rock Chairman Jim Allen addressed the issue in a press conference reported on by NJGamblingSites.com saying:
No. 1 we are certainly going to work within the guidelines of the Department of Gaming Enforcement in the state of New Jersey and while there are a few sports betting windows open at I think Borgata opened, we understand the market is actually more favorable with hand-held device or smartphone if you will.
So nobody has that technology approved yet by the DGE, we are in that process so we’ll be making some announcements in the next 30 or 60 days as far as how we are going to do that.
On the land-based side of the business, Allen touted the casino as an opportunity to bring new jobs to Atlantic City and pointed out that the company received 50,000 applications from potential employees at the site.
Though there hasn’t been an official launch of the online casino, it is currently up and running.