If you thought the undead, purple Minions, and flocks of Walter Whites were going to put a scare into you this Halloween, just wait until your opponent hits his two outer on the river. With Delaware set to launch its online gambling industry this Thursday, October 31st, Pokerfuse.com has confirmed that poker will, in fact, be one of the games offered.
While there was never a time when poker was eliminated from the roster of games that people within Delaware’s borders would be able to play, there has been some skepticism as to whether it would be worth offering. With less than one million residents, Delaware is just the 45th largest state in the United States; most doubt that it could support internet poker. Whereas customers can happily play casino games such as craps, roulette, and blackjack by themselves as they are only competing against the house, poker players must have opponents. If a state doesn’t have enough residents to supply traffic to online poker rooms, it will be hard to get any games going. To make matters worse, it is very hard to get out of a low traffic rut – when people see that there is barely anyone sitting at the tables, they tend to stay away, rarely allowing the poker room the opportunity to grow.
To that end, Delaware will be looking to form interstate poker compacts with the other two states that have legalized and regulated online gambling, Nevada and New Jersey. As it stands now, each state has and will have its own licensed gambling sites, accessible only by people within that state’s borders. Interstate compacts would allow people from one state to play on the sites of another state, therefore increasing the total market for the gaming sites. According to a recent article on CardPlayer.com, Delaware Lottery Director Vernon Kirk said that Nevada is “anxious to compact with us,” and that Delaware shares the same sentiment. Nevada is also a relatively small state in terms of population, ranking just 35th with about 2.8 million residents.
New Jersey, which plans to launch its online gambling industry the week of Thanksgiving, would be the state that Delaware would really want to partner with, as it brings almost 9 million residents to the table.
The poker and casino games platform in Delaware will be provided by 888 Holdings, the same company that powers WSOP.com in Nevada. Other “behind the scenes” technology will be provided by Scientific Games. These services will include things like player identification, geolocation (to make sure players are within Delaware state borders), and payment processing.
