Virgin online casino launched in New Jersey in January 2014. When you blend the storied heritage and hospitality of Mohegan Sun with the world-renowned innovation of Virgin Hotels, something magical is bound to happen. Add the extraordinary setting of Las Vegas and one-of-a-kind moments of awe will await you at every turn. Welcome to Mohegan Sun Casino at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.

Billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson might be late to the party in New Jersey, but that won't stop him from making a grand entrance. The founder of the Virgin Group will be launching his legal, real-money online gambling platform this week after teaming up with Gamesys and the Tropicana Atlantic City Casino and Resort.

Virgincasino.com was one of 15 gambling websites approved to offer online gambling in New Jersey last fall after the state passed Internet gambling legislation. While online operators like bwin.party and 888entered the market on the Nov. 26 launch date, Virgin elected to delay its launch while competitors ironed out early issues with geolocation and payment processing.

Virgin will officially enter the New Jersey market on Friday. The site will offer more than 30 games, including blackjack, roulette, slots, baccarat, and video poker.

'We've been rehearsing this moment for several years in the UK, including dealing with players who have bet more than $4.3 billion on Gamesys games in 2012,' said Lee Fenton, chief operating officer of Gamesys, according to the Associated Press.

New Jersey generated $8.4 million in online gambling revenue in its first six weeks, and more than 155,000 iGaming accounts were created in the state as of Jan. 12. The Borgata and partner bwin.party are the early leaders in the space, producing nearly half of the revenues ($3.7 million). Tropicana ranked fourth out of the six Atlantic City-based operators, generating $748,589 in the first six weeks.

The overall figures fell short of projections. Several industry analysts projected that New Jersey would take in $200 to $300 million in online gambling revenue in the first year, which means the state would need to generate $16 million to $25 million per month.

But operators will point out that there is plenty of room for growth as iGaming develops in the Garden State.

Established in 2014, Virgin Online casino is one of the products from Virgin Group—the same brand that owns Virgin Airlines. It features a beautiful, well-organized site that loads incredibly fast. What’s more, it has a large collection of games and bonuses. Virgin Hotels and a group of investment companies purchased the Hard Rock Hotel for $500 million in March 2018. The Hard Rock closed on February 3, 2020, and Virgin Hotels Las Vegas is scheduled to open on March 25, 2021. The casino portion will be known as Mohegan Sun Casino. Richard Branson, wearing an interesting hat. The Virgin Group—founded by everyone's favorite British kajillionaire, Richard Branson—has partnered with Gamesys to open Virgin Casino, a new, legal online gambling site for people in the Garden State. Though online gambling (or, at least, legal online gambling) has been off to a pretty slow start in New Jersey, Gamesys COO Lee Fenton seemed.

'Everybody needs to take into consideration that this industry is in its infancy,' Tropicana President Tony Rodio told the AP. 'There will be mobile applications, and a lot of the slot content isn't operational yet.'

Branson, famous for his flashy marketing techniques under his Virgin mega-brand, will likely attempt to grab a big piece of the New Jersey iGaming market by using similar concepts. The website is already pushing a community jackpot promotion which will pay out up to $20,000 to players logged into the site whenever a jackpot is hit.

Virgin is also planning to roll out a real-money poker app through Facebook later this year which will be available for players located in New Jersey.

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Richard Branson, wearing an interesting hat. (Getty)

Finally, you can go to Atlantic City and not actually have to leave your hotel room.

The Virgin Group—founded by everyone’s favorite British kajillionaire, Richard Branson—has partnered with Gamesys to open Virgin Casino, a new, legal online gambling site for people in the Garden State.

(In case you haven’t been avidly following New Jersey’s virtual casino news, online gambling was legalized in the state last November.)

Though online gambling (or, at least, legal online gambling) has been off to a pretty slow start in New Jersey, Gamesys COO Lee Fenton seemed pretty sure that people are going to (virtually) flock to Virgin’s new online enterprise.

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“There’s a lot of games on there that are tried and trusted from the casino floor, but there’s also a load of unique content—slot content or jackpot content that you can’t find in any brick-and-mortar casino,” Gamesys COO Lee Fenton told Betabeat.

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True to Virgin’s c-c-craaaaaazy reputation, the Virgin Casino will apparently be giving out a butt ton of money. With a much-hyped communal jackpot feature, any time a user wins $10,000, another $10,000 will be split amongst all the other users currently logged into the site—and Mr. Fenton said we can expect the jackpots’ values to get even higher in the future.

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And more good, #relevant news: Mr. Fenton assured us that users won’t have to worry about their personal data being leaked to some sketchy Russian mafia peeps.

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“We’re certainly not worried about data leaks,” he said. “All of our technology is state of the art….We look at multiple different databases to verify the player is who they say they are, and make sure that they are of a legal age, and make sure the player is physically in New Jersey when they wager.” Cool.