It won’t be long before New Brunswickers looking a game of poker won’t have to go all the way to Las Vegas — they won’t even have to leave their own homes.
Atlantic Lottery has entered into an agreement with their counterparts in Quebec and British Columbia to provide online poker games to Atlantic Canadians.
New Brunswickers have been able to buy lottery tickets and play bingo on the PlaySphere website since 2004, but Courtney Pringle says the expanded online presence is all about reacting to demand.
“Our players responded very well to our PlaySphere site, but it’s also important to note that lotteries around the world are operating in a market of change,” says Pringle, a spokeswoman for Atlantic Lottery.
“They often express surprise when they learn they can’t play the games they want to play with us, such as poker and other games.”
Those customers are already playing poker at other sites, many of which are illegal and cost the corporation more than $50 million each year, Pringle says.
Atlantic Lottery had been in negotiating with the other provinces for months, but this month it was announced that the partnership will move ahead.
The provinces will share a common online platform, with each delivering a product specific to their own residents.
All of Atlantic Lottery’s profits are returned to the region’s provincial governments. In 2008-09, the corporation allocated $133.4 million back to New Brunswick and a total of $398 million across Atlantic Canada.
The poker site could bring extra customers and revenue, but Caroline Brunelle, assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Brunswick, says it could also bring risk.
“Any time that you improve the accessibility of a service like that, you increase the likelihood that a percentage of the population will have problems. It will increase the rates of pathological gambling,” the gambling expert says.
Incoming search terms:
- atlantic lottery logo
- atlantic lottery poker
- atlantic lotto poker
- atlantic online poker
- atlantic lotto
- atlantic canada online poker
- atlantic canada online gaming news
- playsphere
- poker atlanticlotto
- atlantic lottery poker on line 2011
Is this site still being updated? I’m interested in following along with whatever new information comes out.