Ray Lesniak offers a glimmer of hope to PokerStars after commenting at the recent iGaming North America 2014 conference that the most successful online poker room in the world could well earn its berth in the New Jersey iGaming space within the next two years.
Does the Rational Group have any friends within the corridors of power of the New Jersey iGaming offices?
It seems they do.
After having their initial application for a New Jersey online gambling license put on hold for two years due to the kerfuffle over the PokerStars founder Isaia Scheinberg, and a lot of nonsense about bad actors, it seems there may be a way in before that deadline ends.
When it comes to creating a regulated, secure and profitable iGaming environment, there is nobody pushing harder than the Garden State senator Ray Lesniak.
The American Democratic Party politician was named as the eighth most powerful man in poker by a panel of poker industry insiders responsible for collating the BLUFF Power 20 2014 rankings, and it is he who has offered an olive branch to the owners of the Red Spade.
Speaking via a video conference at the iGaming North America conference, the New Jersey Senator, declared that PokerStars had ‘paid their penalty’ and were ‘not excluded’ from the iGaming party currently being led by Bwin.Party and the Borgata Hotel and Casino.
According to an article on Pokerfuse, Lesniak’s comments arrived after the California Senator Lou Correa neatly side-stepped leading questions on the current in fighting between the Indian tribes and any potential for PokerStars to be a leading light in any Californian online gaming landscape should one emerge from the beaches.
Lesniak is the man responsible for the push to turn New Jersey into a regulatory hub for global online markets, in a bid to make the American state a major player in the world of online gambling.
