people flock to the Atlantic City Boardwalk and casinos this holiday but internet gambling has become the real driver for the state's gambling industry Governor Murphy recently signed a law extending online gaming for another five years but that was after some inexplicable back and forth in the legislature that changed the extension from 10 years down to two until landing at five years for reasons no one seems to understand senior political correspondent David Cruz has the story online gaming is keeping the lights on in Atlantic City former assemblyman Ralph Caputo one of the driving forces behind online gaming in New Jersey who sponsored the original online gaming authorization Bill a decade ago says what most everyone says today thank goodness for online gaming because it saved the casino industry from catastrophe during covid if you look at the numbers in Atlantic City internet gaming at sports betting although I'm including that in the numbers about 40 percent of the revenue they have certainly rebounded successfully from covid but are still not at pre-pandemic levels the actual foot traffic going into the Casinos gambling buying drinks going to restaurants seeing shows it's close but it's still not there so it seemed like a no-brainer that a bill to reauthorize online gaming for another 10 years would sail through the legislature everybody wins except like a lot of what happened in the final days of the session it got all messed up it passed the assembly's first committee with no issue and then all of a sudden hit a speed bump where the assembly decided to amend that 10-year reauthorization window down to a two-year window and that's when the roller coaster really began nobody really knows or admits to knowing why the window went from 10 years to two years which led to speculation like is the speaker trying to send the message to South Jersey lawmakers what would the message be exactly or is Mayor Marty Smalls flexing some muscle in the ongoing battle with casinos over annual payments in lieu of taxes he didn't answer our calls today maybe there was some concern over the increase in online gaming addictions well two bills dealing with that are currently languishing in Committee in the legislature Jane buckanovic of Stockton University says whatever the real reason the numbers don't lie prior to 2019 internet gaming only generated less than 500 million dollars per year in 2020 when the pandemic hit that jumped to 970 million and every year since then it's over a billion dollars not to mention the state gets a bigger cut of Internet gaming than it does from the casinos which are now facing increased pressure from Pennsylvania and New York former AC mayor now assemblyman Don Guardian says he's glad that the industry will get at least five years while the city tries to Rebrand as more than just a place to gamble casinos in New York City are certainly going to hurt Atlantic City and Atlantic City is going to do the best they can so I think you'll see continued Renovations of the rooms cool new HIPAA restaurants entertainment you can see the in the inside indoor water park that's being built so they're going to do their best to try to meet the concerns the investors start to wonder why should we invest in Atlantic City if they're not sure about the future of online gaming it doesn't make sense if it ain't broke don't fix it says Caputo but in Trenton sometimes nothing's broke until lawmakers try to fix it I'm David Cruz NJ Spotlight news [Music] [Music]