According to MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren, Nevada and New Jersey could team up when it comes to online gaming as soon as 2014. As it stands now, only Nevada has legalized online poker and only players located in the desert state can compete with each other. The same will be true in New Jersey when its suite of online casino games and poker comes online in November.

Murren told Reuterson Wednesday, “I think it’s likely that in 2014 we’ll see a compact between New Jersey and Nevada. We’ve really been focusing on Nevada’s ability to compact with other states, create more liquidity.”

A.G. Burnett, Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, echoed Murren’s sentiments, saying, “Nevada is striving to do what it can in regards to compacts. We do not jump into the fire without having done a lot of cautious research and study into the particulars of such agreements, and that phase is nearing completion.”

The big knock on state-by state online poker has been that populations in many locales will not be sufficient to support a proper poker ecosystem. With a few exceptions like California and Texas, many states will likely not be able to offer a wide variety of games across a wide variety of stakes on their own. However, allowing states to network together in a similar way to Powerball could alleviate that issue. Remember, Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot is $425 million, enough to get gamblers everywhere to their local gas stations and supermarkets to buy tickets.

For Murren, ensuring that MGM is in a prime position to succeed across multiple states is of the utmost importance. The same Reuters article quoted him as saying, “We have a big team that is preparing us on a state-by-state basisand on the states that we believe will be the most productive for us. And we’ve been working with the state of Nevada on their efforts to compact with other states. I think at least 40 of the 50 states are in some stage of debating [online gambling] internally. The ones most visible are New Jersey, New York State, Illinois, and California.”

MGM does not have a gaming license in New Jersey, although it owned half of the Borgata(pictured) in trust as of February. Boyd Gaming owns the other half of the Borgata.

As a Las Vegas Review-Journal article from February explained, “MGM Resorts placed its Borgata ownership in trust in 2010 following settlement of a complaint filed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. The agency said MGM Resorts’ joint venture partner in Macau, Hong Kong businesswoman Pansy Ho, was unsuitable because international law enforcement alleged casinos controlled by her father, billionaire Stanley Ho, were influenced by Chinese organized crime triads.”

MGM owns casinos outside of Nevada in states like Mississippi, Illinois, and Michigan. We’ll keep you posted on the latest Nevada poker community news right here on PocketFives.

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