The Nevada Gaming Control Board continues to amend the regulatory draft for allowing Nevada-based online poker, aiming to provide a solid framework for the development of legal online gaming in the state.
An important part of the draft includes strong measures for ensuring that player funds remain accessible and “reasonably protected.” Specifically, 25 percent of the total player funds must remain in cash, which will be held in a federally insured financial institution. This would be a great boon to players, as issues of slow and non-payment should be eradicated under these regulations.
In a recent hearing on Thursday, November 4th, one proposal stated that player to player transfers should not be allowed by licensed operators. The concern is that players may use their poker account as a bank account, to settle debts or use for other payments. Currently, proposed online poker legislation and regulatory drafts have not laid out any specific clauses which would allow player to player transfers.
The issue of poker bots/artificial intelligence continues to be an important topic for the Board. The goal being to ensure that poker games are played between human players only. This would suggest that hand history databases that generate heads up displays at the table, such as Holdem Manager and PokerTracker, would not be outlawed under the current version of the draft.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board has been working diligently towards the licensing of online gambling in the state, even before Black Friday happened. March 2011 saw the Board’s approval of the first relationship between an international online gaming company (888 Holdings) and a Nevada casino licensee (Caesars Entertainment). June 10th, 2011 saw Assembly Bill 258 (AB 258) signed into law, requiring that the Nevada Gaming Commission adopt regulations to license interactive gaming in Nevada by January 31, 2012.