As a writer in the poker industry I follow this pretty closely, and the fact that I'm a bit of a political wonk gives me a pretty good understanding of what is going on at the moment.

Basically, the future of the industry in the US hinges on Nevada (which is scary considering the small population base of the state) and how they rollout their intra-state version of online poker in January. If they can get comparable numbers to say France/Spain/Italy, then there should be a strong player base and other states will start to take notice as revenues start coming in. Believe their numbers or not, but Spain has touted 700,000 real-money players since they legalized online poker, which is about 1.5% of their population. This would give Nevada a player pool of about 40,000 players over the first year, which isn't too shabby; my guess would be about 5,000-10,000 active players spread across however many sites.

NJ is still a bit of a longshot considering a bill landed on Chris Christie's desk last year and he vetoed it. This might be something that winds up as a ballot initiative, as I'm not sure a potential presidential candidate in 2016 will want to deal with explaining why he signed an online gambling bill in a Republican primary –more likely he will be outwardly neutral towards it and call for a ballot initative… “Let the people decide.” But I wouldn't expect any serious movement in states until some results come in from Nevada.

The chances for a federal bill are less than 10% imo, but this isn't too big a deal thanks to the new interpretation of the wire act (applying it to only sportsbetting). The reason this is so important is that it greenlights states to pass online poker legisaltion (or online lotteries) without worrying about conflicting with federal law, it would further allow states to pool players sort of like they do for Powerball. If a dozen states pass some type of online poekr legislation before the federal government gets involved they will be too late.

Hi JJ, yes Stars is in talks, but this doesn't even neccesarily mean it is for NJ gaming this year; it could be an attempt to position itself if federal gaming is ever passed, or for NJ in the future. A casino will not always be available for purchase, so it makes sense to snap one up at a good price –once a bill gets serious the price would likely double. Stars also recently bought a major stake in the Hippodrome in London, so they have been moving more and more into B&M poker. 

Considering they just coughed up some $750 million – $1 billion to deal with Black Friday and get Full Tilt going, a $50 million flyer on an Atlantic City casino isn't that big of a deal, even if they have to sit on it for two or three years before they have a vehicle for online poker.

I'm not saying they don't know something about the bill, but considering hos pitiful online poekr lobbying has been in the past I doubt they can influence Christie's decision