Danielle ‘dmoongirl’ Andersen was one of the few remaining Ultimate Poker professionals still extant before the site announced it shut down in Nevada.
Ultimate Poker has shut straight down its Nevada online poker site, closing a 19-month run after becoming initial regulated Internet poker site in america. The organization has now become the first also to get rid of operations in Nevada, leaving just two other poker providers active in the state.
The Ultimate Poker closure will, at least for now, leave Ultimate Gaming with no active Internet video gaming operations in the United States. Two months ago, the company also pulled from the New Jersey market, citing the issues that are contractual ended up being having aided by the Trump Taj Mahal.
Revenues Didn’t Live Up to Expectations
‘on the web poker revenues in Nevada have actually fallen far short of original projections,’ said Ultimate Gaming Chairman Tom Breitling. ‘Moreover, the state-by-state approach to online video gaming has developed an exceptionally cost-prohibitive and challenging operating environment. These factors have combined to help make the course to profitability very hard and uncertain. Consequently, we have determined to cease operations.’
Ultimate Poker suffered from what numerous saw as inferior software and too little brand recognition. Nevertheless the site had hoped to replace this in Nevada by beating the competition to your market, something it accomplished by launching months that are several anyone else could make it through hawaii’s regulatory requirements.
Early Advantage Evaporates with Competition
That advantage put the company in a exemplary position in the beginning of the state’s regulated Internet poker market. But it was only a matter of time before bigger names came in to the state to compete, and the room that is second enter the market had been a bit of a juggernaut: the Caesars-backed WSOP.com, which showcased the well-known (and well-respected) World variety of Poker brand.
Before very long, WSOP.com had surpassed Ultimate Poker because the biggest site into the state. While Ultimate held on up to a tiny player base, WSOP.com now controls about two-thirds of the market, a share that will end up nearly 100 % once the Ultimate Poker shutdown is complete.
Since Ultimate Gaming left New Jersey, there had been some signs that the ongoing business was trying to control costs. That included cutting a lot of the site’s stable of professional poker players, including Jason Somerville. Mostly of the remaining Ultimate pros, Danielle ‘dmoongirl’ Andersen, stated she found out in regards to the end of Ultimate Poker in Nevada on Twitter.
‘Obviously saddened by the @UltimatePoker news,’ Andersen tweeted on afternoon friday. ‘Appreciative of all the possibilities they given to myself & the poker community. All I can do is hope like hell the future is brighter with this game I love so much.’
Smooth Shutdown Expected for Players
Ultimate Gaming says they will work with state regulators to make certain a shutdown that is smooth and there appears to be no basis for players to be concerned in regards to the safety of their account balances at this time.
‘Our company is grateful towards the Nevada Gaming Commission and Gaming Control Board for allowing us to be the company that is first operate online poker in Nevada and greatly appreciate their leadership and support as the very first state to license and regulate internet poker,’ Breitling said. ‘We are working closely with the Gaming Control Board to make sure a transition that is smooth our customers as we cease Nevada operations.’
The exit of Ultimate makes just two poker rooms staying in the Nevada market. Along with WSOP.com, there is the true Gaming site operated by South Point Casino, though that site has traffic that is negligible.
Mohegan Sun appears to Expansion as Connecticut Takes on Massachusetts
The Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut will fight losing customers to neighboring Massachusetts. (Image: kickingdesigns.com)
Mohegan Sun happens to be steeling itself to defend myself against Massachusetts, in the place of beating a retreat that is humiliating losing the bid for an eastern Massachusetts casino license this year.
Sunlight wants to construct a new casino in north Connecticut to compete with the $800 million MGM Resorts casino scheduled to start across the border in Springfield in 2017.
The Springfield casino is expected to derive a 3rd of its visitors from Connecticut, putting Mohegan Sun in a position that is offensive keep its land gambling population from bleeding across the state border to Massachusetts.
Sixty per cent of Massachusetts residents voted in favor of retaining casino video gaming carrying out a public referendum in this year’s midterm elections, and therefore MGM and Wynn Resorts, the latter of which was given the east Massachusetts permit at the cost of Mohegan Sun, are now free to push ahead with their projects.
And while Connecticut may have been praying that voters would decide to ‘repeal the deal,’ the state must now act to safeguard its casino industry from potentially competition that is devastating.
‘The competition is on. The competition has begun,’ president of the Mohegan tribe Kevin Brown declared within an interview with the Connecticut Mirror this week.
‘This isn’t a conversation that is new however, it is certainly a revived conversation,’ he added. ‘We need to take action in the face regarding the development of Massachusetts gaming. To do otherwise could be short-sighted on our part.
‘[The Massachusetts casino developers] undoubtedly haven’t been shy about saying they are not ones to lose more revenue from Massachusetts gamers going to Connecticut,’ he included.
Game up on, apparently.
Financial Peril
Moody’s Investment Analysts warned last month that Mohegan Sun could face ‘financial peril’ after losing the East Massachusetts casino license. Had it won, said gaming analyst Keith Foley, its financial situation ‘would have improved materially.’ The Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville is very leveraged, he added, and could face significant debt payment just as the two proposed Massachusetts casinos open their doorways for business in 2017.
Both Connecticut casino resorts, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods, were hit hard by the worldwide economic downturn of 2008 and they are over $1 billion in debt.
Difficult Process
While expansion may be in the cards, it’s going to be a long and difficult process that is legislative. Connecticut has sanctioned casinos in its southeast since the very early nineties in return for a part of the profits. Just the Mohegans and also the Mashantucket Pequots, who run Foxwoods, are permitted to work casino gambling into the state, with the provision that no other entity may achieve this.
This means that expansion could be a complex procedure that is legal needing the approval of the legislature, the governor and both tribes.
Nevertheless, Brown told the Connecticut Mirror that he had had some ‘point-to-point conversations’ with Mashantucket Pequots’ tribal chairman Rodney Butler on the issue and that ‘both agree totally that these (discussions) are a necessary move.’
Meanwhile, Representative Peggy Sayers, who recently oversaw a legislative task force studying regional video gaming competition, concluded that Connecticut ‘must take bold and immediate action to protect and expand our state’s gaming industry.’
And Representative Stephen Dargan, frontrunner associated with panel that oversees gaming regulation problems in Connecticut, said this that he wants to hold a hearing later in the month on how to protect the industry week.
Revel to Reopen Under New Owners, While Nj-new Jersey Showboat Goes Collegiate
Atlantic City’s Revel will reopen as a new casino, but exactly when remains unclear. (Image: Ben Fogletto/pressofatlanticcity.com)
The brand new owners of Atlantic City’s Revel Casino, Toronto-based asset management company Brookfield Asset Management Inc., have established they will invest $200 million to redevelop the formerly swank property, with the aim of reopening it once again year that is next. Brookfield bid $110 million for the property at auction last month, a fraction of its original $2.4 billion building cost.
James Kehoe, chairman of brand New Jersey’s Casino Reinvestment Redevelopment Authority, said that the investment team expects to perform the purchase month that is next. Besides that, he added, the team hasn’t set a detailed timetable for Revel’s next phase.
Revel had been a plan that is grand to regenerate Atlantic City, but was conceived unfortunately going to the market simply as the global downturn in the economy from which Atlantic City has didn’t recover went into full move.
Year along with the Showboat, it was one of four of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos to close in 2014, with another, the Trump Taj Mahal, unlikely to see in the New. Revel launched amid much fanfare in 2012, but with its huge operating expenses, it failed to ever turn a profit, and also by the time it closed earlier in the day this was leaking over $1 million a week year.
From Showboat to Satellite Campus
Meanwhile, Richard Stockton College has snapped up the Showboat Casino from Caesars Entertainment for an sum that is undisclosed. The house, on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, will become a satellite campus for the college that is undergraduate that will be located in Ponoma in Atlantic County.
The Showboat shut its doors in August, having unsuccessful to discover a buyer, and despite being a profitable operation for owners Caesars Entertainment. The Mardi Gras-themed casino opened in 1987 and ended up being bought by Caesars in 1998.
Whilst it had been the littlest of Caesars’ Atlantic City properties, with regards to web revenue, it also had relatively low operating slotsforfun-ca.com costs, which enabled it to turn a profit of nearly $2 million last year. Nevertheless, by the start of 2014, it was clear that the casino market in Atlantic City had become saturated and the company’s other properties, Harrahs Atlantic City and Caesars Atlantic City, needed some elbow room. The main purchase contract is the fact that home would not reopen as a casino.
‘There is too much capacity in Atlantic City currently, such that the comes back to existing capacity are under great pressure,’ Caesars CEO Gary Loveman said recently. ‘So we’re looking at our choices to lessen the cost of doing business right here, choices to reduce ability.’
Diversifying the City
Stockton President Herman Saatkamp was unable to discuss the details of the purchase, which includes 28 acres, as well as the 1,425,000 building that is square-foot until it is finalized.
‘Our intent would be to engage in a task that improves Stockton’s educational development, offerings and cost-containment while during the time that is same new educational opportunities to Atlantic City,’ Saatkamp said. ‘for me personally to provide out any extra information. because we are simply just at the letter-of-intent stage and bound by a privacy contract, it is untimely’
‘The transformation and revitalization of Atlantic City requires the addition of a diverse group of reasons for individuals to come see,’ said Loveman, commenting regarding the deal. ‘I believe the construction of a Stockton campus there will help diversify the economy of the city, that is critical to its well-being that is future.