TEN Atlantic City Owner Likens Red Tape To Rape In Talking About Reopening His Resort
Sometimes it’s hard to tell where developer Glenn Straub ends and his teenaged, angst-filled alter ego begins.
In what could be considered a disrespectful and rude tirade, Straub didn’t pull punches this week when talking about how state and local politics have made the process of opening TEN Atlantic City (formerly Revel) slow and expensive.
“They don’t know how not to rape you,” Straub told the USA Today-owned Courier-Post. “It’s like when you come to New Jersey, you have to take all of your clothes off and burn all your money.”
Straub’s words come at a poor time in light of this week’s celebration of International Women’s Day.
Straub doesn’t want to play by the rules
The firebrand developer bought the Revel out of bankruptcy in 2015. He paid an incredible $82 million for a property that cost more than $2 billion to build.
State and local agencies including the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and the New Jersey Casino Control Commission have taken a hard line against Straub, not standing for his antics and sticking with their policies.
They want him to:
- Obtain a casino license
- Pay a $100,000 debt left by the previous owner
- Procure other necessary permits and inspections
Straub has balked at these stipulations, claiming he isn’t obligated to pay any debts left by previous owners. He also doesn’t believe he should have to obtain a casino license.
After all, Straub says, he’s merely a landlord. He says he will contract out casino and hotel operations to New Jersey developer Robert Landino.
Straub’s attempts to evade a casino license failed in January when regulators ruled against him.
Straub missed Feb. 20 deadline: Nothing new
The Revel-TEN-Straub saga has been a consistent string of missed deadlines and permits.
Straub announced early this year he would open parts of TEN AC on Feb. 20 despite lacking the permits to do so. As many industry experts expected, it did not open on Feb. 20 because Straub lacked the necessary permits to serve alcohol.
Common sense would dictate Straub should have had these permits in hand before announcing an opening date, but much of what’s happened in this saga defies convention.
For example, Straub has tried to open the property in the past without conducting health inspections for his restaurants or obtaining permits for elevators.
City regulators say they’re willing to work with Straub
Despite Straub’s constant stream of anti-regulator rhetoric, AC Director of Licensing and Inspection Dale Finch has said he and his colleagues want to help Straub open as soon as possible.
All permit and inspection applications were sent to Straub, but the miserly mogul, for whatever reason, has refused to complete the necessary documentation.
From a business perspective, Straub appears to be fighting for deregulation in an industry that is heavily regulated. Perhaps Straub could win backers by making that argument, were it not for his inflammatory comments, lack of action on key permits and an overall abrasive approach to working with the city and state.
Meanwhile, there will be more competition in TEN’s neighborhood when Hard Rock AC opens up on the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal property.
How Safe Is My Money At A Legal NJ Online Gambling Site?
With a long history of less-than-reputable online casinos serving players in the US, players may worry about how safe their funds really are in legal online casinos in NJ.
What stops a company operating a regulated NJ gambling site from taking your money?
What casinos back NJ’s online gambling sites?
There are currently only five authorized casinos that are licensed and regulated by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
This may come as a surprise, as it seems there are so many places from which to choose. However, the truth is only the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, Caesars Interactive Entertainment, Gold Nugget Atlantic City, Resorts Casino Hotel, and Tropicana Casino and Resort have licenses to operate NJ online casinos within the state.
Of course, all of these casinos offer multiple online casino platforms to access their sites.
For example, Resorts operates not only Resortscasino.com and Mohegansuncasino.com; they also hold the licensing for Pokerstarsnj.com.
All the casinos that operate online gambling sites in New Jersey are reputable companies that have gone through all the proper channels to ensure the safety of online gaming funds. They are licensed and insured.
Online gambling sites in NJ as safe as cash at the casino
If you feel your funds are safe tucked inside the cage at the Tropicana, you should feel the same level of safety with your funds in an account at its site.
A lot of the concern over the safety of online gambling and what happens when a company goes out of business stems from the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act) that passed back in 2006.
More specifically, the fear points toward the event poker players call “Black Friday,” which occurred in April 2011. The DOJ swooped in and shut down all the major online poker sites that were operating in violation of UIGEA. All player funds were locked in their accounts. With no way to withdraw the funds, and no way to log onto the sites, hundreds of thousands of people felt that their funds were lost.
As it turned out, this wasn’t the case. PokerStars (now operating legally in New Jersey) was running everything on the up and up. It had player funds separated from corporate funds and when the DOJ cracked down, it almost immediately gave everyone the balance of their accounts.
However, Full Tilt did not have player accounts separate from corporate accounts, and player funds were seized along with its other assets. This made it impossible for Full Tilt to refund players in a timely fashion. After much legal trouble, PokerStars ended up purchasing Full Tilt, and the acquisition required PokerStars to pay back all the Full Tilt customers in full.
In the meantime, many players didn’t have access to their bankrolls for more than a year. It is only logical that people would fear depositing and playing online under these circumstances. But the days of fly-by-night gambling operations are behind us.
The fact that online casinos are licensed and legal makes all the difference
With online gambling legal in the state of New Jersey and online casinos, such as Betfair.com and GoldenNuggetCasino.com, having full backing from the huge brick and mortar casinos in Atlantic City, gambling online no longer has to be a shady operation.
You can be sure that when you deposit funds at TropicanaCasino.com or PokerStarsNJ.com, your funds are as safe as they would be locked away in the cage at Caesars Palace.
As long as you are depositing in a New Jersey online casino that is licensed by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, you can be sure your funds are safe.