888 and Golden Gaming Partnership Receives Preliminary Approval from Nevada Regulators
After a long summer with little news coming out the world of online gambling, with fall on the horizon there is definitely action in the air.
This week, attention turned back to Nevada, where state gaming officials have issued the preliminary consent for a marketing venture between 888 Holdings and Golden Gaming, the operator of some forty casinos located in the Silver State. The news was reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Agreement essentially breaks down to customer sharing
888, one of the world’s largest online betting companies, is already in a partnership with the Las Vegas Strip casino Treasure Island to provide the network as well as the platform for Treasure Island’s online poker web site.
With the Golden Gaming agreement in place, 888 stands to benefit by having access to gamblers who are visiting Golden Gaming’s properties around Nevada. Golden Gaming will essentially push customers from their land-based casinos to 888’s online poker site. Golden Gaming will be able to share profits generated by the iGaming venture with Treasure Island as well as 888.
Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman A.G. Burnett praised the deal as being clever, telling the paper, “This is a good example of new ideas coming to the marketplace. It’s an attempt to add further liquidity. I, for one, welcome it.”
Remarking on the joint project, Golden Gaming’s attorney Michael Alonso said, “It’s unique and allows Golden Gaming to market 888’s platform to its customers.”
Before it is finalized, the plan must be green-lighted by the Nevada Gaming Commission, which has scheduled a hearing on the matter for the 26th of this month.
888 also to have presence in Delaware and New Jersey
Nevada is not the only state in which 888 has gained an early foothold. As regulated real-money gambling in the United States is just beginning to gear up, 888 in fact has a presence in all three of the states that have thus far enacted legislation to permit some type of Internet wagering.
888 has partnered with Caesars in New Jersey to run the WSOP real-money poker web site, and being that Caesars hold four operating licenses in the Garden State (one tied to each of their land-based casinos), Caesars has also promised 888 one such license with which to operate their own venture. In New Jersey, a variety of online casino games will be on offer in addition to online poker when the industry launches at the end of November.
In Delaware, 888 has been appointed one of the official operators, along with Scientific Gaming, by the Delaware State Lottery, the body that will oversee and operate the state’s online wagering industry. Games are expected to go live there later on this fall, and as in New Jersey, a comprehensive variety of betting options will be available to players so long as they are physically located in the state when logging onto the sites.
Many companies approved in Nevada but still only one site up and running
While we have seen a lot of news coming out the Nevada licensing process, so far one of the things the regulated Nevada online poker market has been noted for is the slowness with which it seems to be getting started.
Despite the fact that dozens of companies have been licensed by state regulators in one capacity or another, to date, only one site has officially opened its doors to Nevada players, that being Ultimate Poker. Ultimate Poker dealt its first hand of online poker in Nevada back in April, and has had nearly half a year to exclusively cater to the market there.
That may soon be changing, however, as next week Caesars is scheduled to hold a call in which they will announce the date of their Nevada launch. Check back with us tomorrow as we bring you more on that story.
