America’s “first legal ” online poker set is going live today.
The site was made possible thanks to the LasVegas legislature rushing through a bill that made it possible to play online poker inside the state borders.
It didn’t take all that long for a company to find a way to take advantage of the bill, and Ultimate Poker wins the race to be the first real money gambling site on the web.
Not surprisingly, Ultimate Poker is run by two casino entrepreneurs Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. If anyone is going to know how to put together a legal gambling site on the ‘net, it would be someone that already has a long history in the market.
While this is the first site to pop up since Nevada passed their legislation, there are others that are simply trying to get off the ground.
America’s first legal online poker site will most likely soon by joined by the Gibraltar based 888 . That firm actually got their license to have a gambling website first but has had problems getting the site going.
Internet gambling had long had a “wink-wink, nod-nod” relationship with law enforcement officials in the United States. It was never really legal but it was seemingly tolerated by the government.
That changed in 2011 when the Justice Department cracked down on sites that were doing business with people living inside the United States.
That move seemingly sparked web gambling advocates to look for a way to actually make the past time legal and found that a good first step was to go state by state.
Other states, like New Jersey have been giving bills like the one passed in Nevada a good long look. One has to think that if enough states make that move that a national referendum could be in the offing.
What do you think of America’s first legal online poker site going live?
