N.J. State Sen.Raymond Lesniak  introduced a second version of a bill designed to allow Internet gaming in New Jersey late last week that would require all bets to be made through Atlantic City casinos, which would operate the online  sites.

The bill addresses a major concern of Gov. Chris Christie, who vetoed an earlier bill on online gaming. Christie said the previous bill violated the state constitution, which only allows gaming  in Atlantic City. Christie felt the previous bill would allow Intenet gaming parlors to spring up all over the state.

The new bill, however, restricts online gaming to residences, which would be seen as making a bet in Atlantic City, where the computer servers would be located.

“Internet wagering in this state shall be deemed to take place where a casino’s server is located in Atlantic City regardless of the player’s physical location within this state,” the bill says.

The bill also prohibits any business or organization other than an Atlantic City casino from offering online gambling on its property. (more…)

The Trop Jackpot is back in play

With “nobody here to hit it” The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot still comes in below $500,000 at $494,142 as the casino reopened at noon today. The casino, like all city casinos, was shut down much of the weekend in preparation for Hurricane Irene.

The jackpot was sure to top $500,000 in a normal weekend, providing it didn’t hit. We’ll have to see how long it takes for players to filter back into town, but the jackpot was gaining about $5K a day.

So you gotta figure it will hit the mark sometime tomorrow.

Ok, we’re back.

A.C. after Friday's evacuation/ Reuters

Atlantic City’s 11 casinos are expected to open at noon today after closing for Hurricane Irene over the weekend.

It was only the third time Atlantic City casinos have ever been closed since gambling began 33 years ago. And while Irene didn’t turn out to be very severe along the New Jersey coast, everyone’s taking a “better safe than sorry” approach.

Atlantic City Weekly’s offices were evacuated early Friday in the face of the storm, but there wasn’t much going on in the city’s poker rooms this weekend outside of normal play anyway — well except for a special Deepstack, bounty tournament at the Borgata scheduled for Sunday that was wiped out and, of course, The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot, which could have hit right before the casino’s closed for all we know (we’re checking).

Things should be back to normal in the poker rooms by the afternoon.

We got some information from the Taj Mahal about some upcoming poker promotions and we’re just so glad they’re talking to us about anything,  we’re rushing it out.

Basically, poker players at the Taj this fall can win some extra cash through football picks, though to get the $1 million grand prize you have to be pretty good, picking at least 204 out of 245 games correctly. That’s better than 80 percent.

If you can pick football games at that percentage, really, poker should just be a sideline.

Anyway, here’s the rundown on the promotions from the Taj Mahal:

Kickoff this football season at Trump Taj Mahal,

Trump One Card holders will have their chance to win thousands in cash and prizes this fall. The first two promotions, including the $1,000,000 Taj Poker Football Challenge and the Football Game Day Millions Giveaway, are open to all Trump One Card holders who have an active poker rating on that day. The $30,000 Pigskin Payoff promotion is open to all Trump One Card holders. (more…)

The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot survived the weekend and is now sitting at about $489,000. That means it picked up about $15K over the weekend.

The Trop has been busy 24/7 for the last couple of weeks, but as a smaller room (about 18 cash games going at one time on weekdays) it’s not going to see the kind of day-to-day growth we’ve seen at rooms such as The Borgata and the Taj.  And of course the Caesars combined bad beat jackpot grows daily through play at four casinos.

But none of that really matters now. Only a handful of bad beat jackpots have ever topped $500,000 in the city and the Trop is knocking at the door. Expect the lines to just get longer.

Meanwhile, in some other Tropicana news, the casino seems to have developed a philosophy of “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

The casino has tapped high roller Don Johnson (not the Miami Vice guy) to host a $100,000 winner take all Blackjack tournament Sept 2^nd and 3^rd. Johnson was the high roller who clipped the Trop for more than $5 million at the blackjack tables in April.

Since then, Johnson has become a quasi-celeb, famed for some indulgent champagne purchases, and a pretty feared whale at the casinos. But the Trop is turning what was at first some bad press into some positive buzz.

The tournament is actually invitation only, but you can score an invite by signing up for a free Diamond Club Card on September 2 at the casino.

The Trop is also donating $10,000 to the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, Johnson’s favorite charity.

You gotta hand it to the Trop. It’s a pretty smart play. Go here for details.

It’s official. The Tropicana is now in the grips of bad beat mania.

The bad beat jackpot has climbed to $474,533, by far a new record for the casino and not bad by any A.C. casino’s standards.

Isabelle Mercier

“We’re going 24/7 here now,” says Bruce Pearlman, Trop poker manager. “This thing just keeps climbing. We’re running 27 tables all day on the weekends and 18 on the weekdays.

“It’s great to see this, but it is beating my staff up a little,” he says. “They’re working non-stop. You kind of want to see it crack, but at the same time you don’t.”

The Trop sets the minimum for the bad beat at quad eights, a move made more than a year ago to pump up the jackpot. Yet despite that, the Trop has never made it to these lofty heights.

Of course the record for an A.C. bad beat is still $672,000 set in June 2010 at the Taj Mahal, a room nearly twice the size of the Tropicana’s.

The Borgata has the next highest bad beat jackpot in the city at $366,022, while the Caesars combined jackpot is at $149,124.

And the Taj’s bad beat jackpot is back down to $23,000, indicating yet another hit this week, but no details have been released.

This weekend also offers up the Put a Bad Beat on Hunger tournament event on Sunday at the Borgata. The tournament is being run through Cabot Creamery Cooperative in support of the Food Bank of Southern New Jersey

The casino is also offering up a satellite for The Sept. 18 Borgata Open Championship on Sunday. Get the details for both events here.

See you at the Trop grinders.

The Borgata has scheduled a satellite for the Borgata Open Championship for this Sunday, Aug. 21, one of two ways players can get a seat for the Sept 18 event.

The $200 + $30 satellite event starts at 4 pm. The event will send one of every 18 players to the championship event (180 players equals 10 seats).

The event starts players with $10K in chips with 20-minute levels.

But there’s also another way to win a seat at the $3,500 championship event. That’s through the Put a Bad Beat on Hunger event also scheduled for Sunday.

The tournament, being run through Cabot Creamery Cooperative and in support of the Food Bank of Southern New Jersey, will award a Borgata Open Championship seat to the winner.

That’s longer odds of getting a seat, but the event isn’t actually a satellite.

The Put a Bad Beat on Hunger Tournament starts at 11am. It’s a $260 + $40 Deepstack event which starts players with $25K in chips. There are unlimited re-entries through level eight.

So between the two, there’s a good shot to win a cheap seat at the championship event.

The weekend saw a bad beat jackpot hit as the Caesars Combined bad beat jackpot hit for  $252,439 on Sunday.

The hit came while the minimum hand was still set high (it decreases a notch every week it doesn’t hit) when an unnamed player saw his quad 10s go down to a straight flush.

The loser/bad beat winner won $76,137 while Seiki Lo, of Brick Township, won the hand and $50,893. The jackpot also paid 101 players at Bally’s and 211 players at other Harrah’s properties $405 each.

Gotta say, that a nice crowd at Bally’s on a Sunday afternoon. The hit came at 4:53pm.

The bad beat was reset to $122,000 and the minimum should be back to four queens.

And for a Monday headline, we couldn’t help noticing this story about online pro Daniel Cates, who is being accused of multi-accounting while playing on line. That’s when well-known online pros like Cates — known as Jungleman12 — hide who they are by signing onto multiple accounts with multiple names.

We don’t know if online poker will ever be the same after Black Friday, but its stuff like this that always made people nervous about online play.

Except for hoodies and sunglasses, there’s no hiding who you are at a live table.

We’re going for a little two for one action on Weekend Update today as we look at the city’s bad beat jackpots and post the schedule for The Borgata Open.

First the schedule, which is available here.

The open begins Sept. 7, with a $300,000 guaranteed, $400 + $50 No-limit Deepstack tournament. The two-day event is also a re-entry event.

Beth Shak

Last year’s opening event, also a $400 buy-in, drew 964 players and had a total buy-in of $337K, so the casino is likely to cover that guarantee.

As pointed out in our weekly poker column, Poker Lowdown, the first thing you notice looking at the Open schedule is the large amount of prize pool guarantees. Seven of the 24 main events of the tournament carry guarantees.

The biggest guarantee is for the Open’s Championship event, which is also a World Poker Tour tournament. The casino is guaranteeing a $3 million prize pool. The $3,300 + $200 event begins Sept. 18.

The Borgata has also included some big stack and bounty events sprinkled through the schedule, and will offer a H.O.R.S.E. event on Sept. 11. The Borgata has been testing Razz this summer, and can finally offer H.O.R.S.E. over H.O.S.E, which never quite felt right.

And we chose Beth Shak for our pic, because she usually plays the Borgata Open.

As for this weekend, nothing special is scheduled, largely because only the Borgata still holds special tournament events, and they have nothing on this weekend.

(more…)

Here’s a few quick hits from around town.

The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot has climbed to $444,000, one of the highest ever for a mid-sized room like the Trop’s with 40 tables.

Last year, the 20-table Bally’s poker room saw its bad beat climb to about $400K in July just before Caesars Entertainment combined its bad beat jackpot among its four properties and, of course, Caesars (24-tables) set a then record for an Atlantic City bad beat in January of last year at $553,000.

Still, the Trop’s bad beat is pretty impressive for a single room that’s not the Borgata or Taj Mahal.

Meanwhile, the casino has added some affordable midnight poker tournaments to its schedule. The games are $35 + $7 Sunday through Thursday and $50 + $12 Fridays and Saturdays. That’s one of the lowest priced tournament deals in Atlantic City.

Over at the Borgata, the casino announced the winner of its weekend, $1,500 + $150, No Limit Deepstack event.

The event drew a healthy 400 entries and had a total buy-in of $600,000, more than doubling the guarantee.

The winner was Russell Crane of Howell Township (Woo Hoo, go Howell), who takes home $148,705. The tournament paid 45 slots.

And the Borgata also saw 991 entries for its Saturday series Aug. 6. The $350 + $50 tournament got 991 entries for a total buy-in of $346,850. The winner, Ohmar Ghanim of Patterson won $75,720.

Of course, as always, these are just the official win totals and there may have been agreed upon splits at the final tables, which are the player’s prerogatives and pretty much unreported.