After many delays, it appears that a bill that would open up New Jersey for online gaming is once again under consideration by the state’s legislature.

—

Daily fantasy sports is legal to wager on in most states in the USA. Check out DraftKings.comfor your shot at turning $1 into $100,000 today. Visit DraftKingstoday.

—

According to John Brennan at NorthJersey.com, a bill that has been delayed since earlier this year was passed through a General Assembly committee on Monday and could be under consideration by the full legislative body within the next couple of weeks. Brennan quoted the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Raymond Lesniak (pictured above), as saying the legislation would be voted on by the Assembly on or about December 17. Then, the Senate would pick up the measure on or about December 20. Should the bill pass through both bodies, it would go to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie for his signature.

There have been some key changes to the bill since it stalled in the state’s legislature back in June. First off, it would open up New Jersey for full online casino gaming, not just online poker as had been previously thought. Second, the bill would require that all gaming servers for any potential intrastate operation be housed in Atlantic City.

“It’s still not too late for Atlantic City to become the Silicon Valley of Internet Gaming,” Lesniak is quoted by Brennan as saying to supporters of the bill.

The laborious drive to put New Jersey in the online gaming arena has had a tumultuous path to reach this point. In March 2011, Christie vetoed a similar bill that would have allowed New Jersey to move forward with an intrastate online gaming market, citing that citizens of the Garden State needed to support such a measure through a referendum. Christie is pictured here.

With the decision by the U.S. Department of Justice regarding the Wire Act of 1961 in December of last year – that the Federal law only applied to sports betting and not online gaming as a whole – Christie quickly changed his course.

In January, Christie reversed his stance on the subject, stating at the time, “I think New Jersey should be in that business. I think we should be an epicenter for that business, but I want to do it right. Folks should know I favor it, I want to do it.” An intrastate gaming bill passed out of a Senate committee in April 2012, but by May, the entire process had ground to a halt.

Lesniak reported in May, after a meeting with Christie’s staff in late April, that there were “major issues” with the proposed law and that “Atlantic City casinos have not made the case that internet gaming is good for them.” These issues, according to Lesniak, were putting a “roadblock” on moving forward with the legislation. Read our update from June.

Some have opined that the reason for the reluctance of Christie to move forward at that time was due to his rising political stock, as he was under consideration to be a running mate for Vice President to Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney (pictured). Legalizing online gaming went against the GOP’s anti-online gaming stance in its platform and passing the law could have potentially hurt Christie inside the party, some believed.

As New Jersey slowed the process down of creating an intrastate online gaming network, the state of Nevadastormed past with its intrastate online poker operation. In Nevada, licensing of potential online poker operators has been in action for several months. It is believed that by early 2013, the Nevada operation will go online to become the first state to offer some sort of internet gaming to its citizens.

When the New Jersey legislature reconvened earlier this week, the intrastate online gaming bill came back to life and, this time, both the General Assembly and the Senate have been able to reconcile the differences between their offerings. If, as Lesniak believes, the bill can be voted on in the fashion he stated, it could be on Christie’s desk before Christmas. We’ll keep you posted.

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. Youcan also subscribe to our RSS feed.