In the shadow of land-based casinos shutting down, New Jersey’s first online casinos ceased operations last week. Ultimate Gaming, the iGaming operations owned largely by Las Vegas-based Station Casinos, blamed a bad relationship with Trump Taj Mahal, the casino that holds the license under which Ultimate Gaming operated.
Station says Ultimate is owed more than $1.5 million from Trump Entertainment and hasn’t been paid in over two months.
“We wish things would have turned out differently for us,” said Marc Falcone, the company’s senior vice president. “Unfortunately, as they say in poker, we were not dealt a good hand.”
Trump Taj Mahal itself is under threat of closure after the parent company issued “WARN” letters to employees saying the property could shut down by mid-November.
Ultimate Gaming hasn’t had much success since it launched last November. Its total gaming win of $4.9 million was at the bottom of the state’s online casinos. Ultimate (and Betfair at Trump Plaza, the sister property to the Taj Mahal) was not permitted to use the “Trump” name without compensating Donald Trump, so it was forced to market a brand that wasn’t familiar to New Jersey gamblers.
The top grossing iGaming sites include Borgata, the World Series of Poker, Caesars and PartyPoker.
Falcone said that the difficulties with the Taj Mahal made it difficult to operate.
“”We in effect haven’t been paid for more than two months,” he said. “Money that the site generated and that we are owed, we were never given. It made it extremely difficult to operate under those circumstances.”
Breitling says Ultimate will focus on its Nevada customers, where the competition isn’t so fierce. Only the World Series of Poker and Real Gaming, an online site owned by the South Point casino, operate there, in addition to Ultimate. He says Ultimate will debut mobile gambling as well as Apple Mac compatible products by the end of the year.
For New Jersey, players can withdraw funds from the website.
“We are working closely with the Division of Gaming Enforcement to ensure a smooth transition for our online gaming customers as we wind down our New Jersey operations,” Breitling said.
