Nevada based firms will be able to start applying for licenses to run Internet poker sites as early as February. According to Vegas Inc., Mark Lipparelli, chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB), told the US Online Gaming Law Conference that investigations would be underway next month with a view to dishing out license applications in February.
Companies that already hold gaming commission licenses in Nevada will be able to tack Internet poker onto their current certifications as long as they fulfill certain criteria. This pertains to them proving their technology can handle limiting play to simply Nevadans of legal age and no-one else. New licensees will need to go through the rigors that obtaining a license in Nevada involves. All those moves by European gaming firms are starting to look like they may come to fruition after all. Does this mean that Pwin gets their no holds barred XXX threesome? They bloody hope so!
Many had expected it to take until the January deadline for these guidelines to be completely thrashed out – and it still could. Then there’s the amount that has been spent by various casino business interests on lobbying for federal legislation. We’ve been of the opinion that once the online poker bandwagon starts, it will be on a state-by-state basis and will take at least the next decade for it to be rolled out fully. Nevada was likely to be one of the first to adopt online poker and we’ll see in February whether the words of Lipparelli come to fruition.
