U.S. AND BRITAIN IN SHARED POKER POOLS AGREEMENT?
New Jersey and UK regulators in exploratory talks.
Talks on internet gambling player pool sharing between the New Jersey regulator and its counterpart in the United Kingdom have reached a tentative agreement, according to a weekend report in the publication Global Gaming Business. A deal could have positive implications, especially for the online poker vertical.
The report quotes New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement chief David Rebuck, who commented:
“We’d still have to figure out lots of issues: specific regulations, how the tax rate from each jurisdiction would be applied, player ID and geolocation issues, and other things we probably haven’t even considered yet. But you have to start somewhere.”
Under New Jersey law, the state government has authority to enter into liquidity sharing compacts with other jurisdictions which have similar regulatory regimes.
Global Gaming Business claims that businesses with activities in both the UK and New Jersey received letters from the New Jersey regulator last week exploring how a player sharing deal might work and what needs to be done to facilitate such an arrangement.
GGB notes that dated research numbers from the professional business services group Deloitte estimated the number of online gamblers in Britain at over 2 million, and there has been steady annual growth in the online casino market of around 10 percent.
New Jerseys total population is around 9 million, and online casino revenues have been growing slowly but steadily.