New Jersey ID Theft, Pot Puffing and Poker Playing Online

In New Jersey online gambling news, it appears that Garden State residents would rather smoke marijuana than play poker online. The poll included New Jersey and other US citizens, and found that nearly 50% of the respondents favored legalizing marijuana use, but only 27% supported making Internet gambling legal. Short-term and extended marijuana use has been shown to decrease response time and alertness, two impairments that online poker players certainly do not need. And in a related New Jersey online casino story which showed an obvious mental impairment of some sort, a Jackson Township internet gambler claims she had her identity stolen and used to rack up $10,000 in gambling debts. The only problem is, the identity thief was ... herself.

31-year-old Diana Zolla evidently got a little too deep in debt and decided that the only way to begin with a clean slate was to call New Jersey state police and claim that her identity had been stolen. She allegedly reported that someone obtained her maiden name and other personal information and created an online gaming account in New Jersey. After insisting to police that the $9,565 in gambling and banking fees were not hers, an investigation was begun. NJ authorities reviewed online gaming and web search engine records, as well as banking account information. They concluded that Zolla had created the accounts herself, and arraigned the erstwhile and unsuccessful Net gambler, releasing her after an appearance in Atlantic County Superior Court.

More than 300,000 online gaming accounts have been opened in New Jersey since legal online gambling began in November of last year. Allegations of identity theft in relation with the new Garden State Internet gambling have been nearly nonexistent. And with cyber casino and poker already a legal reality in New Jersey, the opinion of most Americans, and some NJ residents, that legalizing marijuana use is preferred over legal Internet gambling is a moot point in that state at least. While basically half of all the Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll takers believed that puffing pot is preferential to playing poker, a full 65% of those same respondents admitted to very little knowledge about Internet gambling.

27% of those pro-pot Americans also approved legalizing Internet gambling in the 47 states where it is currently not available through US-based companies. Offshore institutions have long provided legal and certified Web gambling options to Americans and citizens from around the world. The United States Department of Justice provides that any state may run and regulate its own state-based and landlocked Internet gambling industry. But the majority of states currently are not on board the young but growing cyber gambling marketplace in the US. That is why most Americans double down, pull virtual slot machine levers and go all in with some Texas Hold 'Em at established gambling websites which are located outside of the United States.

Investigating how party line division affected the opinions on these two sensitive topics, it appears that Democrats are much more willing to legalize marijuana use as well as cyber gambling than Republicans. 63% of self-reported Democrats in the poll favored legalizing marijuana, versus just 32% of Republicans that responded. 58% of those poll takers labeling themselves as Independents believed that pot puffing should be publicly provided, and age had a lot to do with how the votes went down as well. The millennial generation saw 65% approving marijuana legalization, as well as 56% of Gen Xers and 48% of baby boomers. Currently, Internet gambling has at least 10 states with legislation awaiting votes, and the most likely candidates for the number 4 spot in the US gambling industry are California and Pennsylvania.