Real Gaming, the Nevada online poker outfit formerly known as South Point Poker, has begun accepting online registrations and verifications ahead of an unspecified launch date. On Thursday, a Real Gaming rep posted an invitation on the 2+2 forum, inviting players to sign up via the RealGaming.com site, which is operated by Las Vegas casino operator South Point Hotel Casino and Spa. The site teases that it’s “coming soon” but provides no other specifics regarding the date by which it will begin dealing real-money poker hands.
The agenda for the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Aug. 7/8 regular meeting lists South Point Poker LLC as seeking an application for a second waiver of the deadline for garnering approval of its online poker software. South Point was the first recipient of a Nevada-issued online poker license in August 2012, but delays in getting its in-house software approved by the state’s technology lab geeks compelled South Point to seek an extension of the original six-month deadline in February. That extension expires this month, so how soon South Point will be ready to go appears to be what Donald Rumsfeld would call a ‘known unknown.’ (Both Monarch Interactive and ACEP Interactive, which each won approval around the same time as South Point, are also on the GCB agenda seeking similar extensions.)
For the moment, Station Casinos’ subsidiary Ultimate Poker remains the only Nevada-licensed site actually dealing real-money poker. Caesars Interactive Entertainment (CIE) had promised to launch their World Series of Poker-branded site during this year’s poker confab in Las Vegas, but that ship sailed without the online poker site on board. Online poker scarcely garnered a mention in Caesars’ recent post-earnings call with analysts, beyond CEO Gary Loveman saying CIE’s Nevada aspirations were still “subject to remaining regulatory approvals.” Wildly unsupported conspiracy theory: Caesars is planning a Zynga-style reversal on the whole online gambling thing in order to ‘refocus’ (in Zynga’s case, on social gaming; in Caesars’ case, on creating more debt).
