By tomorrow afternoon, there will be a new player in New Jersey‘s online-gaming industry: Resorts Atlantic City. The casino’s Internet-play site will go online in a limited fashion, 
gradually ramping up to full capacity over the ensuing week. Resorts execs don’t feel that they’ve suffered from their caution getting into the market but rather have benefited from seeing the ups and downs of the Garden State’s first year of online gambling. As CEO Mark Giannantonio told The Press of Atlantic City, “We think we’ve had an opportunity to see what’s been working and maybe not working so well in the market.”
The online venture, a partnership with Sportech NYX Gaming, is hoped to improve the fortune at Resorts, which — despite the death spiral of Trump Taj Mahal — is still the lowest-grossing casino on the Boardwalk. Not even the infusion of Mohegan Gaming Advisors has lifted Resorts out of its post-Dennis Gomes slump.
* A different sort of Internet betting — the illegal kind — just got busted in Florida, where the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s Organized Crime Unit arrested eight suspects on charges of running an online sports-betting ring. The alleged cabal supposedly ran for 19 months before being nailed. Seventy-one-year-old Allan Klein supposedly “provided other Floridians with electronic accounts and passwords that allowed them to place bets on sporting events through off-shore gambling websites.”
To help keep things on the lowdown, Klein paid in person, in cash, and was spotted evidently doing so at Isle Casino in Pompano Beach. To make its case, law enforcement placed $40,000 in wagers with Klein, in addition to gathering evidence via a quartet of wiretaps. Indictments against the eight defendants include racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering, money laundering, bookmaking, just for starters.
* So-called “reservation shopping” went to new lengths in Oklahoma this week. The Shawnee Tribe wants to open a casino in Guymon, at the western end of the state. Trouble is, tribal headquarters in Miami, Oklahoma, are 400 miles away. The tribe plans to start construction on Golden Mesa Casino late next year. A previous attempt by the Shawnee to have land near Oklahoma City taken into trust was ixnayed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 2010. Only one tribe in Oklahoma has ever been approved for an off-reservation casino, which makes the odds against the Shawnee pretty long.
* “Queen of Comps” Jean Scott has penned a cri de coeur from the average player. It’s must reading, especially for casino executives who may not think of themselves as being in the customer-service business.
