Donald Trump’s maverick bid for the presidency is getting a lot of attention, and that includes from advocates of legalized online gambling.
Several poker information websites have been pointing out that Trump—whose name is still on an Atlantic City casino—has supported online gambling in the past.
“It has to happen because many other countries are doing it and like usual the U.S. is just missing out,” Trump told Forbes in 2011.
At the time, Trump and Trump Entertainment were in the planning stages of a joint online gaming venture with New York hedge-fund manager Marc Lasry.
The company formed as Poker Ventures LLC and incorporated in Nevada and Delaware in 2012. It was incorporated in New Jersey in July 2013. Those three states have legal online gambling.
Poker Ventures received a vendor license to operate in the New Jersey online market, but has not gone live with a product. The company uses the same address as the Trump Corporation on its New Jersey vendor license and corporate filings disclose Donald Trump as the director.
So basically, Trump is a leading presidential candidate that owns an online gambling company. That, as we said, is garnering a lot of hope among online gaming advocates.
Early on, Ultimate Gaming operated under the license held by Trump Taj Mahal. Donald Trump refused to let ultimate use his name, and soon Ultimate withdrew from the market (for more reasons than simply not being able to use the Trump name). For Donald Trump to open Poker Ventures in New Jersey as an online gambling entity, he would have to get the approval of the group that now owns Trump Taj Mahal (soon to include Carl Icahn). Trump himself only owned 5 percent of the group that owned Trump Taj Mahal prior to Icahn’s entry.
