North Jersey – State Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Union, on Monday announced at the East Coast Gaming Conference in Atlantic City that he is preparing a bill to allow for private operation of sports betting at the state’s racetracks and casinos – threatening to call the bluff of the federal government regarding sports betting, . Lesniak spearheaded legalization of online gaming in the state as well as its challenge of a federal law now negating the state’s sports betting law. He said he will move forward on the bill in the Legislature should the U.S. Supreme Court decline to hear the…

Gambling 911 – New Jersey’s fledgling Internet gambling industry saw its first monthly decline, falling slightly to $11.4 million in April. In March, which had one more day of gambling than April had, Internet gambling brought in $11.9 million. Figures released Wednesday by the state Division of Gaming Enforcement show the average online take per day was $380,958 in April, down from $383,173 in March. Online gambling had shown monthly increases of 28 percent in January, 9 percent in February, and 15 percent in March. It began in late November as a way of helping the struggling casinos bring in new revenue…

Bloomberg – Caesars Entertainment Corp. (CZR), the largest operator of casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, is looking for ways to reduce capacity in the struggling market, including closing properties. “We are looking at all of our options to reduce the cost of doing business here,” Chief Executive Officer Gary Loveman said yesterday on a conference call after reporting a wider first-quarter loss. “All the businesses in A.C. are under tremendous pressure.” Caesars has been struggling to remain solvent amid a glut of casinos and weak consumer spending, following a 2008 leveraged buyout that left the company with about $23…

iGaming Business – Hosting provider Continent 8 Technologies has confirmed the opening of a new data centre in the US state of New Jersey. The Atlantic City facility will enable Continent 8 to offer its full suite of hosting and managed service offerings to the regulated market. In addition to standard co-location and managed service offerings, Continent 8 will also offer customers its DDoS Prevention and Cloud Backup services. The new facility will become Continent 8’s tenth data centre, with the firm also having other sites in locations such as London, Gibraltar and Malta. The opening of the new centre comes…

NJ.com – A township woman has been charged for attempting to avoid paying her gambling debts by claiming her identity was stolen, police said. Diana Zolla, 31, alerted authorities in January that someone had created an online gambling account using her maiden name and lost $9,565, state police announced in a news release today. By reviewing banking, online gambling and internet service provider records, authorities determined Zolla was the one who created the account, police said. She was arrested and charged with theft by deception on April 30. Zolla was released pending an appearance at Atlantic County Superior Court. SOURCE

NJ 105.5 – New Jersey’s bid to legalize sports gambling has endured defeat after defeat in the courts, but one big winner has emerged, at taxpayer expense – the law firm hired to help Gov. Chris Christie defend a lawsuit filed by the four major pro sports leagues and the NCAA. The firm – Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher – is the same one Christie hired, also with public money, to investigate the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal that is plaguing his administration. According to figures obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request, Gibson Dunn billed the state…