Online gambling on the island of Tinian

Political officials on Tinian Island approved the laws allowing local licensed casino providers to offer services of online gambling, but it may be difficult to find qualified candidates.

On Friday, House Local Bill 20-30 by Edwin Aldan was approved unanimously by the Legislative Declaration of the island of Tinian and Aguigan. To make the law come into force, the governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Ralph Torres has to sign it.

Information in Marianas Variety tells that the bill would add some amendment to the Tinian Casino’s Revised Gambling Control Act of 1989, allowing licensed casino providers to offer online gambling legally if the casino licensor operates a hotel with at least 300 rooms.

The operators interested in the offer will pay annual $ 300,000 US dollars fee for the legal possibility to provide online games, and a monthly fee of 5% tax on gross income from gambling on the Internet is imposed.

Gambling providers would also have to use geolocation software to control the activity of online gambling games “within intra-island borders of the Second Senatorial District and between jurisdictions where the conduct of internet gaming is legal.”

According to the introduced restrictions it seems hardly possible that Tinian will find many applicants, at least in the near future, given that there are no casino operators that currently meet the set-up.

The industry of casino Tinian hasn’t tested impetuous success of the operations of Imperial Pacific International on Saipan. The Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino shut down in 2015 after the financial controller of the USA from FinCEN levied a $75m fine on the owners after identification of inept counteraction to money laundering.

Tinian Entertainment Corp (TEC) acquired the mothballed Tinian Dynasty’s operations in the middle of 2016, but plans to renew its property, having got to a trap after FinCEN has demanded that new owners honor the unpaid $75m fine that TEC has found to be unfair.

Bridge Investment Group (BIG) launched an online petition in February to persuade the government to provide them with concessions which the company has considered necessary to receive the Tinian Ocean Resort and Casino project worth $130 million from a drawing board. But today the petition hasn’t achieved the modest objectives in 500 positive voices, and the project doesn’t move forward to reality.

In February 2016, the Alter City Group group which is based in Macau has received a conditional gaming license from Tinian regulators, and the company has organised an innovative ceremony on the place of the project Plumeria Golf & Casino Resort worth 1,2 billion dollars in June of this year. The actual construction had to begin later this year, but the last update is tied now to construction, which will begin in the second quarter 2018.