As Nevada prepares to become the first state to offer an intra-state online poker network, a major casino operation on the East Coast is preparing to enter into the free online poker market after signing a deal with a Nevada company.
According to the Boston Herald’s Ira Kantor, the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, who operate the massive Mohegan Sun gaming complex in Connecticut and the Mohegan Sun Pocono Downs in Pennsylvania, has signed a deal with the Las Vegas based Bally Technologies to offer a play-for-free online poker outlet. The new offering will be ready for action in early 2013 and marks the first East Coast gaming company to step into the internet poker game. At this time, it isn’t known if the online poker offering will be exclusive to Connecticut residents or will be offered to all.
The leaders of the Mohegan Tribe spent six months reviewing several online gaming providers before settling on Bally, according to Kantor. It seems that the Mohegan Tribe felt that Bally was the best provider as it offered them the ability to integrate several areas as they (or Connecticut law) saw fit. The Bally technology will allow the Mohegan Tribe to offer a mobile outlet for online poker as well as the future options of expanding to casino games, video slots and potentially even sports betting depending on Connecticut’s gaming laws.
“Our goal is always to provide our guests with the best gaming and entertainment offerings and we believe iGaming is the next step in fulfilling the demand for regulated online play when customers aren’t able to be on property,” Mitchell Etess, the Chief Executive Officer for the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, is quoted by Kantor as saying. “Further, we believe this exciting new offering will entice new players to visit our properties and experience all that we have to offer.”
There has been a great deal of discussion in the legislative arenas of Connecticut as to whether to step full throttle into the online gaming and poker arena. After the U. S. Department of Justice decision in December 2011 that the Wire Act of 1961 applied only to sports betting, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy said in January that “it is quite clear that internet gaming is coming to Connecticut. Period. It’s coming.”
He was accused by some in Connecticut’s government of fostering online gambling but he pointed out, with the DoJ ruling, that it would behoove the state to get on board rather than get left behind. “We’re going to have internet gambling in Massachusetts, in Connecticut, in Rhode Island, in California, in Nevada and Mississippi and Alabama and I could go through all 50 states because the internet is the internet. You don’t turn off the internet at any state’s borders,” Malloy said during that January press conference. “If it is allowed in any state, it will appear in every state.”
The action by the Mohegan Tribe marks the first move by an East Coast casino operation into the world of online gaming and poker. Although the state of Delaware has moved forward with passage of online gaming laws that would allow for full-fledged casino gaming, it has yet to announce any operators who have jumped on the bandwagon. New Jersey is still reviewing its options on the issue, while other states (such as Florida) have rejected moving into internet gaming.
The Mohegan Tribe is also potentially looking at being able to be at the head of the line if or when legalized cash game play (for poker or otherwise) is available to potential customers. The Mohegan Sun casino is facing a difficult time revenue-wise as it battles with the other casino operation in the state of Connecticut, the Foxwoods Hotel Resort, as well as new casino properties that are springing up in Massachusetts. With an online poker operation established (free as it is at this moment), the ability to move seamlessly into online operations for real money play would be a boon to the company.
