New Jersey - SOMUCHPOKER

New Jersey is a very important place in the world of gambling. That is where Atlantic City, the “Las Vegas of the East Coast” is located.

On November 5th, 1974 the residents of New Jersey voted on a ballot measure during the midterm elections. The vote was to determine whether or not the Garden State would legalize casino gambling. Unfortunately, the motion against gambling won decisively with 60% of the vote.

Two years later, however, during the general election where Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford, the citizens of Atlantic City alone were posed the same question. They, on the other hand, embraced the gambling industry and voted to allow casinos in their town by a slim margin.

Back in the 1970’s, only Nevada had legal land casinos in the US outside Atlantic City. That is how Atlantic City became the gambling center of the East Coast in the United States.

New Jersey was also an “early adopter” of online gambling. After all online poker rooms were shut down in the US due to the infamous Black Friday events in April 2011, New Jersey was among the first states to legalize internet poker in 2013.

However, this state was also involved in one of the biggest legal battles the gambling world has seen. Borgata Casino’s lawsuit against poker legend Phil Ivey went on for years and years until the settlement between the parties in 2020. The famous Jersey gambling house was trying to collect the $10.1 million Ivey and his partner won at their baccarat table using edge-sorting, a method they deemed to be cheating.

Famous New Jerseyan Poker Players

Tom Dwan, aka “durrrr”, from Edison, NJ is one of the most revered online poker players in the history of the game. He was one of the players who would battle on the nosebleed stakes cash tables on Full Tilt in the late 2000’s while hundreds would “rail” for him.

He also appeared on classic poker TV shows such as Poker After Dark on NBC and High Stakes Poker on The Game Show Network. He’s won $3.4 million in live tournaments. However, his reputation is somewhat tainted by his unfinished challenge against Daniel “Jungleman” Cates.

High roller crusher Dan Smith is from the Garden State as well. He has cashed for $36.7 million in live tournaments, the 5th most in poker history, as of writing this.

Tom Marchese has cashed for an outstanding $19.136 million in live tournaments. In December 2014, he came in 2nd in the $100K NLHE event at the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $1.575 million. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.

Scott Blumstein won the biggest poker tournament every year, the WSOP Main Event in 2017. He bested a 7,221-player field and won no less than $8.15 million.