“New Jersey on Tuesday became the biggest state yet to allow regulated online gambling, establishing a template that proponents hope other states will follow for a business that federal authorities long treated as a criminal enterprise.
The new law allows Atlantic City’s casinos to run websites that take bets on games such as blackjack, slots and poker. It also could help legitimize online-gambling companies whose executives the U.S. Justice Department once targeted for offering the same kind of Internet wagers.
The law, passed by the legislature and signed Tuesday by Gov. Chris Christie, for now requires bettors to be physically present in the state, which industry executives and regulators believe can be verified with technology that tracks a user’s location. But bets could conceivably be placed from any device with an Internet connection.
New Jersey’s move marks a significant turning point in the debate over online gambling in the U.S., which has been raging for more than a decade. But while it could encourage similar measures in other states, big hurdles remain to widespread acceptance of such gambling.
Until a year ago, the federal government considered such gambling illegal and targeted online-gambling companies and their partners with criminal and civil lawsuits. But in 2011 the Justice Department reversed itself, prompting many states to consider legalizing online gambling and lottery directors to start selling tickets online.
That process has picked up steam in statehouses and executives’ offices this year since an effort stalled in Congress to pass a law allowing online poker. The first regulated online-gambling networks in the U.S. are expected to be up and running this year in Nevada and Delaware….”
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