Philadelphia’s Sugarhouse Casino Launches New Jersey Online Gambling Site
Philadelphia’s Sugarhouse Casino has become the latest entrant in the New Jersey online-gambling market, going fully live this week with its new offering at PlaySugarhouse.com. The full launch of the site comes just four days after the beta-test version of the Pennsylvania casino’s new online offering was set live, a little over a week ago. An order signed by New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement Director David Rebuck declared the soft-play test period a success, thus giving the go-ahead to full real-money operations.
The new Sugarhouse Casino offering is being operated in affiliation with Atlantic City’s Golden Nugget Casino, thus operating under the Golden Nugget’s NJ license. The Sugarhouse Casino and brand is well recognized in northern and western New Jersey, and thus offers a complimentary brand of sorts to the Golden Nugget’s own online offerings in New Jersey. Golden Nugget was incidentally granted a transactional waiver by the DGE to allow the Sugarhouse partnership.
The PlaySugarhouse.com services will be only available to people physically present in New Jersey, though cross-border Pennsylvanians, including the metro Philadelphia area, appear to be among the site’s target audience. Sugarhouse would almost certainly be among the Pennsylvania-licensed casinos to offer online gambling in PA, should that state authorize such services in the near future.
Sugarhouse Casino parent Rush Street Gaming operates four casino-hotel properties in the US, including the Philly location. Rush Street also owns and operates three different “Rivers Casino” properties, including one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of Rush Street’s other “Rivers” property is in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois, nearby to O’Hare International Airport. Rush Street’s fourth US casino property, also a “Rivers” casino, is near Schnectady, New York.
Corporate grandparent Rush Street Gaming is also the controlling entity of the recently controversial (for unrelated reasons) televised-poker show “Poker Night in America”. Several PNIA episodes have been filmed, as one might expect, at Rush-owned properties.
Meanwhile, the online offering that’s just debuted in New Jersey is being run through the company’s online division, Rush Street Interactive. The online division opened an office in Cherry Hill, New Jerey, earlier in 2016 to comply with the state’s regulatory requirements.
“The result is a unique player experience that delivers more because New Jersey players deserve more,” said Richard Schwartz, the president of Rush Street Interactive, developers and operators of PlaySugarHouse.com. Plugging the new offerings, Schwartz added, “We keep our slot minimums low and offer extremely low-stakes table games, so you can play longer and make your entertainment budget go further. And still win big.”
“PlaySugarHouse.com is a great extension of the SugarHouse Casino brand,” added Rush Street Gaming CEO Greg Carlin. “We are excited to broaden the SugarHouse reach to new players in New Jersey and give players more choice about how they want to enjoy their casino gaming experience.”
The press release touting the PlaySugarhouse.com site listed a plethora of slots and casino games. Some video poker offerings were announced, but no actual online poker in the true “poker” sense. In that way, the new site also mirrors that of Jersey partner Golden Nugget, which is one of the larger players in the nascent New Jersey online slots and casino-games market. However, the Golden Nugget has also not delved into online poker, preferring to stick with the solo-play online gambling forms.
The launch of the PlaySugarhouse.com site is also the third such offering in New Jersey by out-of-state entities that have partnered with Jersey casinos. Mohegan Sun, which owns casinos in New York and Connecticut, yet has an operational partnership with Resorts Casino and offers its MoheganSunCasino.com brand in New Jersey. And California-based Pala Interactive runs two sites in New Jersey under the Borgata’s operating license.
All told, five different New Jersey casino operators now run, in various partnerships, a total of 20 different online sites serving the NJ market.
COMMENTS