New Jersey Regulators Talk Online Casino Geo-Location Issues

Earlier this week, New Jersey commenced the testing of its first online casinos. Since then, many gamblers who live near the borders of the state and wanted to access the online gambling sites were not able to do so because of geo-location technology used by the gaming companies who started white label online casinos. Thus, several complaints have been reported by legitimate New Jersey players that, even though were inside the state’s borders, were blocked by the gaming sites and were not allowed to gamble.

New Jersey online gambling laws clearly state that gamblers need to be located within the state in order to play at online casinos. Up to now, regulators said that there have been 23 attempts of out-of-state gamblers to try to register at New Jersey online casinos, attempts which have been successfully blocked. Even so, Lisa Spengler, a spokeswoman for the Division of Gaming Enforcement explained that the regulatory authority is not concerned about the fact that residents who are close to the state’s borders cannot access online casinos at this moment, because the trial period is meant for testing and solving any system issues. Furthermore, Spengler said that is better that people from New Jersey are being blocked, than people outside of New Jersey illegally succeeding to access the state’s online casinos. In the near future, if a federal gaming legislation will be submitted, operators will be able to offer white label casino games to American residents without any kind of restrictions.