Regulations Becoming Clearer In Nevada For Online Poker Players

Many online gamblers were unsure just how the state of Nevada was going to regulate the online poker industry. Last week, the first online poker site went live in Nevada, and that has offered some clarity for those confused by the new regulations.

One of the key components of the 2011 law that legalized online gambling in Nevada was a protection that gamblers had to reside in Nevada, and that players must be of legal age (21) to gamble. How those regulations were going to be implemented was the question, and Ultimate Poker has answered those questions over the past week.

A player, upon signing up and depositing real money in the Internet gambling site, agrees to become part of a location tracking system. The system allows the site operators to know the location of the gamblers while in the poker rooms. This means that a player who was traveling, would lose the right to play in the poker rooms once they crossed Nevada borders leaving the state.

That portion of the law could be one that is temporary. Governor Brian Sandoval signed into law earlier this year a bill that would allow Nevada to enter into compacts with other states, allowing each to accept online gamblers from the other jurisdiction.

The age limit challenge was to come up with a way to ensure only those over the age of 21 gambled in the poker rooms. Ultimate Poker has several safeguards in place to handle age verification, and as of yet there have been no complaints about underage gamblers accessing the real-money games.

A cell phone is also a requirement for gamblers. This allows the site to track location.

“We can locate your phone based on the cell tower that phone is talking to,” said Ultimate Poker CTO Chris Derossi. “There’s a few other things that we are not disclosing. We don’t want to create a roadmap.”

In other words, the site operators do not want crafty gamblers to know all the safeguards, preventing them from hacking into the system from areas outside the legal boundaries.

Ultimate Poker has all eyes on them as they move forward with the first regulated online poker site in US history. With that in mind, Ultimate Bet has taken even extra precautions to ensure that they create a model for the dozens of sites expected to launch in the coming months, not only in Nevada, but also in Delaware and New Jersey.