But you have to be physically present within the state of Nevada to play
On Tuesday, UltimatePoker.com is expected to launch what will become the country's first fully legal online poker site, with one major catch: it will be limited to those physically present within the state of Nevada.
Neither the site nor state regulators have said precisely what means they will use to determine a player's location, but Nevada state officials said previously that it would be far more extensive than simple IP-based geo-location.
"This is an important day for the gaming industry," Ultimate Poker Chairman Tom Breitling said Monday in an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "We're the first, not only in Nevada but in America, to offer real money poker in a regulated environment."
Breitling and other executives will be on a press conference call that Ars will participate in later Tuesday morning, and we will update our story with more details.
"Nevada is now the first state to accept legal, regulated interactive wagers," A.G. Burnett, the chair of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, said. "It's a big day and I'm proud of the state."
The launch of the new site marks a significant change since April 2011's "Black Friday," the infamous day in the poker world when federal criminal and civil charges were brought against three major poker sites and their associates, and $3 billion in assets were seized. The government alleged that these sites were in violation of a 2006-era federal law forbidding companies knowingly accepting payments for illegal online gambling. As a consequence, nearly all overseas poker sites refuse to do business with players coming from American IP addresses.
A deal's a deal
Later in 2011, however, the United States Department of Justice released a famous memo allowing individual states to authorize and regulate online gambling within their own state borders. Earlier this year, the Silver State's governor signed such a bill into law — New Jersey and Delaware now also have similar laws on their books, but Nevada is the first to go live with an authorized online gambling site.
The law also allows for states to engage in "compacts," or agreements with one another, which could create a patchwork of states where online gambling is legal. For now, Nevada's laws only specifically authorize online poker, while New Jersey and Delaware will include a larger suite of casino games, including poker.
For now though, at least some big-time professional poker players — many of whom have left the United States so they can play in other countries where online poker is already legal — say that the new online games (even including New Jersey) are too small for the time being.
"[I won't move back to Nevada] until there is enough money and large enough high stakes tournaments running on the sites, which may take years depending on how the laws are structured and how difficult they make it for other states to band together and create larger prize pools," Matthew Stout, one of the top-ranked poker players worldwide, said. After Black Friday, he moved first to Costa Rica, and later to the Netherlands, just so he could play online poker full-time.
"Think of it like the Mega Millions and other multi-state lottery programs," he added. "They'd never be able to boast these gigantic nine-figure jackpots if they had to keep all lotteries intrastate. Likewise, there won't be enough money for tournament players to win until the prize pools are large enough."
Chris Derossi, Ultimate Poker's chief technology officer (and former chief architect of Macintosh system software, leading the design team for Mac OS 7.1), briefly described how this would be enforced.
"They include your network [IP address], to the location of your mobile phone device and some stuff that we can't talk about," he said. "We do require that players have a mobile device that we can locate through the mobile networks."
He clarified that the company was partnering with Locaid, a San Francisco startup that works directly with mobile phone carriers to ping phones as a way to determine their location.
Let the games begin.
I can imagine a bunch of VPNs will be set up in the state of Nevada.
That's a start, but it will probably take years before all the states will realize that taxing Online poker is a cash cow.
Never liked UP. Bring back bodog.
So settng up VPN's won't do any good if you knew how to understand the statement below from the article!!!!!
"They include your network [IP address], to the location of your mobile phone device and some stuff that we can't talk about," he said. "We do require that players have a mobile device that we can locate through the mobile networks."
I guess some just don't comprehend what they read very well...........
I agree with the cash cow part, but not on the length of time. Maybe, one year at the most, if Nv publishes the amout of money they collected. You know, politicians are one greedy bunch, including Replublicans. Let me take a stab at the next state, IL.
all I wrote was, "I can imagine a bunch of VPNs will be set up in the state of Nevada."
That is all I wrote and nothing more. Do not read more into what I wrote.
I never wrote that using a VPN and only a VPN alone was some kind of magic bullet that would circumvent all the security measures that would be designed to prevent out of state poker players from playing online poker.
Read what I wrote again and show me where I said that using a VPN and a VPN alone would get you around all the security measures. You won't find anything like that in what I wrote.
Perhaps the use of a VPN in conjunction with some other method, for example but not limited to, buying a cheap pre-paid cell phone from Wal-mart and storing it in a Nevada location, etc, etc, etc....may allow someone outside of Nevada to play online poker or then again, there may be no way to get around the security measures but that doesn't mean people will not set up VPNs in Nevada in an attempt to try. All this is beside the point because all I wrote was:
"I can imagine a bunch of VPNs will be set up in the state of Nevada."
If you came to the conclusion that I was saying using a VPN alone was going to get you passed all the security measures then that is your own fault because I never wrote that.
helpmewin are you speaking from experience?
Nevada is my favorite place to get service.
JAMMY BONEY MED
I was only kidding with you.
I like whiteballz....... A little over reactive but that's to be expected at times......
Jammy is the leader by light years/// Rocket Man burns up the fuse alone.
I would never imply helpmewin would be into any improper services that is why I used the wink emoticon because it was a joke.
Copy that. I tend to be supportive of improper services..... And in Nevada I think its just "services"
What we really need is interstate online poker and eventually international just like it was before the Unlawful Gambling Act was passed. In KY it was illegal to play online poker years before Black Monday, but it's still legal to bet on horse racing online. We see the same hypocrisy in many of the lottery states.
Illinois, Georgia, New Jersey, and D.C. should be the next jurisdictions offering online poker and probably before the end of the year. MUSL is the obvious choice to start interstate online poker and the participating states could just sit back and collect their share of the profits.
I agree that we really need interstate online poker, that'd be great!
But I don't want the MUSL and the state lotteries all involved.... It's better off being private industry.
WTF is your problem? None of us had even posted here.
Seriously dude what is wrong with you? Seriously dude, get some help. If you seriously can't stop thinking about a couple people disagreeing with your non-math based assumptions about lottery play that badly.... you really need to talk to someone about your life or something.
I am curious how they will keep people who are not Nevada residents out. I wonder if using a dialup internet account in Nevada would get around the IP address thing. As for an address, a mail drop in Nevada might solve that and as for a Nevada phone number, that's easy to get too. It will be interesting.
The reason Nevada is restricting online poker to state residence is because there are no Federal regulations. Until that happens each state will have the same restriction. It's possible after more states go online, Congress will do something.
I suggested MUSL as a starter because of the number of lotteries, but Ultimate Poker will probably hook up one or more of the other states and Poker Stars will probably get a shot at a site because they helped the Feds with the Full Tilt problem.
The players will need to open an account with real names, addresses, bank routing and account numbers, and SS numbers. Once that is set up, I'm assuming any Nevada resident can play from anywhere online.
Now, now anyone who has even a little knowledge of the net knows that VPN's are solely used as a tool to get around/circumvent your own ISP's or coutries ability to block you out from some sites and other things. Just like the music companies that don't allow you to download some songs that the artist haven't gave permisson for d/l in the US (we know the reason behind that.... it's called Royalites). So some here will use VPN's in some other countires to "circumvent" their ISP's blocking of their activities to d/l those songs in the country where that VPN is located!!! SO GET REAL DUDE and do your crying elsewhere about what I read into your "STATEMENT". Remember I didn't make the comment about a bunch of VPN's being setup in the state of Nevada, YOU DID!!!! Sorry I know what most people use VPN's for and SO DO YOU, otherwise you wouldn't have made the comment in the context that you did in the first place!!!!!
I've been following it pretty closely, because I am a poker enthusiast, I can say that you're mostly right here, but I think you're mixing a couple things up.
Nevada is restricting it to in state because the DOJ released a statement saying that it's interpretation of the Wire Act only deals with interstate communications/wagers. Prior to that, the assumption was the DOJ would interpret interstate as "within the US." Therefore, online gambling WITHIN a state is fine. The Nevada law (IIRC, I know this is true of the NJ law I'm just pretty sure about Nevada) the thing you are referring to is about the clause that states that interstate can be an option IF the Federal Government changes it's regulations on online gambling.
As for PokerStars, I certainly hope so. They're having to jump through ridiculous hoops in NJ, and the papers are being completely unfair to them. Sensationalism in the media, I guess.
But heck no, I don't want the MUSL in this. Honestly I'd hate that. It's ruin competition, and I want plenty of competition to keep fees and rake low.
You don't have to be a Nevada resident, but you do have to be located in the State to play.
So if I was on a trip to Nevada, I could play, despite being a NJ resident. I couldn't, however, play from NJ on the Nevada sites.
As for how they're gonna know you're in the state? I know there are a few technologies that can do that, and I know they considered a few. I'm not sure what they ended up using, though.
Yep your right! i have bank accounts & addresss in 3 states Next stop Reno
I'm pretty sure a lot of players are excited to play this game. It's more convenient because they can play wherever they are.
This is my Favorite News Story
Shuffle up and deal in Nevada only
I agree. You want to gamble online offline play poker however you want move to Nevada.
Nevada has it's pros and cons.
Pros:
Gambling opportunities
Cons:
It's a frigging desert!
They don't have enough water.
It's the country's biggest nuclear waste dumpsite and they store it in a mountain sitting on an earthquake-prone faultline.
Everything is composed of blazing hot sand and dirt.
There is nothing green anywhere.
Anytime you want to know what the weather is going to be like outside, just go stick your head in a 450 degree oven and you'll know.
Harry Reid will speak for you.
That last sentance would keep me out of there
Its worst than all the others put together