New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has reportedly vetoed what looked to be the best (current) hope for regulated online poker in the US.

That’s the word from the Wall Street Journal just a few minutes ago; Lisa Fleisher broke the story less than an hour after Christie held a news conference where he said he had yet to decide the bill’s fate.

The timing is odd, insomuch that Fleisher suggests that NJ legislators were told of the veto prior to Christie’s press conference.

New Jersey would have been the second state in the US to regulate online gambling; Nevada offers intrastate sports betting. No states currently offer regulated online poker.

It couldn’t have helped matters that some powerful voices in the casino industry – most notable Caesar’s – prefer a Federal regulatory solution. As Caesar’s Interactive head Mitch Garber told EGR today:

“I don’t think we are going to change positions. I think we have always been very flexible. We do have a preference. We think a federal regulatory framework is a better framework for everyone including the states, the players and the federal government”, said Garber. “We think a national framework is easier to regulate, and easier to tax, but we have never been inflexible. If state-by-state is the way the United States need to legalise online poker and online gaming, then we will support it.”

Even as the New Jersey bill heads toward legislative purgatory, initiatives in other states – most notably California and Florida – continues to gain momentum. More info on those bills here.

Iowa also has a bill addressing internet poker in play, but insiders are reporting that the portions of the bill having to do with regulating poker are highly unlikely to remain in the bill by the time it actually comes up for a vote.

Christie’s veto doesn’t mean the end of the road for internet gambling in New Jersey; the Assembly could override his veto (although the bill’s sponsor, Raymond Lesniak, has said that the votes for an override aren’t currently there), or the bill could be reworked to address the concerns of Christie – concerns he has yet to explicitly make public.

Lesniak had this to say following Christie’s veto:

“While the Governor expressed concern with some aspects of the bill today, he’s committed to the general idea that we have to expand gaming product in order to bring our gaming industry back from the brink of fiscal insolvency. I’m encouraged that he’s expressed an interest to work together to maintain the core idea behind Internet wagering while making sure that such operations cannot be hijacked by unscrupulous operators.”