winner pays 100% of rake.

I agree that 6 - 9 months is a very, very optimistic estimate of how long it will take to work out the many details of this agreement.

But that is the world we live in.

Still, this is a cause for some celebration. We are witnessing the birth of what is likely to become, if it becomes, the bedrock of a national poker network. The details these folks work out will be watched closely in other states considering online poker, and if viewed favorably, will be an incentive for those states to join.

Every journey begins with a first step! ;-)

Skallagrim

This is exactly the point they were at with the UKGC. They had an agreement in principle but could not work out the details. The key issue is the NJ constitutional requirement for the game servers to be located in Atlantic City. Unless NJ puts forth an amendment to their state constitution then the only possible scenario is out of state players play on NJ sites/servers under NJ rules and regulations with some sort of profit sharing back to the other jurisdictions. This was a deal breaker for the UKGC and likely will be for most if not all states.

Unless you hear news of a NJ constitutional amendment or the other states willingness to abondon their home based systems and allow their residents to play on NJ sites in exchange for profit sharing then people are getting excited over what will probably be nothing. Maybe there is another way forward but it certainly is not obvious and they were not able to find it in the UKGC negotiations. Sorry to break everyones bubble but history is not on our sides.

This looks like good news for US players if eventually all of the states can play against each other but does this mean there is no chance of worldwide sites ever happening again that all countries can play like in the old days? I don't know much about bitcoin or p2p but isn't there some potential with technologies like that for a worldwide real money poker site to become possible again?

Never say never. But that's obviously nowhere in the near future. But we knew that already.
There is. As soon as your average 50 year old construction worker is using bitcoin, that might be a viable option.

Wpn is a worldwide site that everybody in the world can play on. It also takes cryptos.

Figuring it's taken 7 years to get a couple states regulated poker I'm guessing we won't be seeing worldwide regulated poker possibly ever again esp with all the diff regulations in diff countries across the world.

Rules suck man.

Won't New Jersey players be able to use the existing servers in AC to play on the multi-state site, as those servers communicate with those used by Nevada and Delaware?

There's already a model for regulatory issues with multi-state pooling from the Nevada-Delaware merger, so although there will be issues unique to this merger, such as the expected banning of HUDs for NJ players accessing the multi-state games, it's not as though everything needs to be created from scratch.

From everything I have read on the subject any multi state game involving NJ residents really becomes a NJ game. It comes down to where "the game" is located. In the context of online poker this is the location of the server that handles the dealing of the cards, tabulates the bets and determins who the winner is. Under NJ constitutional law the only place a resident of NJ can gamble is Atlantic City. Therefore if a player from NJ is part of the game that game must take place in Atlantic City, the server that hosts the game must be in Atlantic City and operated under NJ regulations.

What differentiates NJ from other jurisdictions is this restriction to a physical location. Other jurisdictions are mostly concerned with minimum software standards and tax collection. The UKGC will approve both local and remote operators to offer services to UK players. But they will only deal with remote operators from jurisdictions that offer reciprocity ie. the other jurisdictions has to offer licensing to UK based operators. They could not come to terms with NJ because it was only a one way street.

This creates a couple of issues. Nevada and Delaware have existing infrastructure and regulations in place. If they want to partner with NJ they have to abandon most if not all of what they have now. Since the servers must be in Atlanta City, then NJ rules and regulations are controling. They could still have their own client software but that client has to be approved by NJ to connect to their servers and must fully comply with NJ rules. The other states could still impose additional restrictions so long as those restrictions did not directly conflict with NJ rules.

For example HUDs are banned in Nevada but not in NJ. The games will be run on NJ servers therefore HUDs are allowed. Nevada could still say Nevada players can not use HUDs but that restriction would have to be built into the Nevada client. The Nevada players would be at a disadvantage because they would be barred from using a HUD but would be playing against NJ players using HUDs.

Maybe the other states will go along with this but American politics being what they are they usually are focused on protecting local jobs and local control. So if there are game servers located in Nevada then it will be very unlikely Nevada politicians will support giving up those servers and the associated jobs.

This just reminds me of Boardwalk Empire, ****s just took control of gambling. Americans are pathetic is the only thing that comes to mind in this situation as they let money men control them. I'm sick of pathetic humans letting ****s control the world around us. The only option is you people be less pathetic......

It changes nothing WRT playing against other countries. As others have said, if that ever happens, it's a long ways away still.

If you're talking about sites being regulated in the US and being allowed to play internationally, Bitcoin changes nothing. It's laws that are the obstacle, not moving money. If it's permitted by US regulated sites, there would be no more issue with US financial institutions moving the money.

If you mean non-US regulated sites allowing US players, they've always existed. Bitcoin wasn't needed for that. However, it certainly has made things easier for US players on these "offshore" sites.

The laws aren't the obstacle. It's the ***** made for profit/money seeking governement and politicians. They just want their cut, a cut that is not their's in a legal right other then normal income taxes.

Essentially we are all bichh made cuz of this nonsense. So be happy you're a slave people, cuz that's what you are in this arena. A slave pumping coins in a slot machine, that's what these ****s see you as. Now the question is are you gonna take that ****?

Note, this is already a solved problem - today UK, Danish, Estonian, Romanian, Belgian and Czech players all sit together at online cash games, alonside players who fall under "offshore" licenses in Malta/Gibraltar/IOM. Operators pay to all these authorities based on who contributed what to a cash game pot (obviously for tournaments it is easy).

As I understand it, operators often have a lot of latitude with this. Weird as it sounds, in most cases is it not precisely defined in regulations, and operators generally decide themselves how they want to chop it up. That's how I've had it described to me by more than one online poker room exec.

In reality, in every case I know of, I think operators use a weighted contributed system the same as they attribute rake for rewards programs.

Regarding timelines - The FR/IT/ES/PT regulators signed a similar agreement in July and expect to have something online within six months from that date; maybe with just 2 countries first, maybe with all four in a coordinated fashion. That's four countries each with very different rules; NJ joining the NV/DE pool should in theory be a simpler process.

Ya, until you get to politicians and their money grubbing hands. Nothing is simple here cuz the minds in charge are simple as ****. Thanks America lol, these people are so ****ing stupid.

Europe also has a few of them Not saying that the US situation will go like the European, just giving some context.

The European project took five years of talking to get to a signed agreement.

^^ nice couple of posts Hood. thx for info.

this will take a while to work out but the biggest benefit I see is many other US states that have been tinkering with various forms of online legislation might be more motivated now to get something over the line .

most the heavy lifting on how to pool between US states each with its own regulatory laws and agencies, will be worked out with NV/NJ/DE deal. (regs, technology, revenue etc)

If NV and NJ regulators were more cooperative vs adversarial when they came online a few years ago they would both be much better off today, as would US poker players !

And as a result, they put up an obstacle - laws.

Whether we want to call the obstacle the politicians or the laws, my point remains - Bitcoins change nothing.

Looks like PA is gonna go through, seems likely they'll join?

I'm no expert on US regulation but I think yes, it seems likely.

The problem is the solution used in the UK and elsewhere is foreclosed by the NJ State Constitution. Until that gets fixed when dealing with NJ what works everywhere else in the gaming world will not work there. Which is why the UKGC walked from their discussions with NJ.

I don't see why where the servers are physically located would have to have anything to do with how the taxes paid by the operators on the rake they collect in a hand is divied up among the jurisdictions in which the different players involved in such hand are located.

I'm not 100% sure, but isn't it actually phrased the opposite: No gambling is allowed in NJ except in AC. Therefore, they said for online gambling the gambling takes place where the servers are located and mandated that the servers be in AC. If servers were in Nevada, then the gambling would be taking place in Nevada? So there is no prohibited gambling taking place in NJ then?




EDIT:


Ah, I'm not going to spend time on this right now, but it seems like there should be easy ways around this if the deeming that the games occur in AC if we put the servers in AC thing worked in the first place when NJ started this. If necessary you could have all outside states' servers send all the information to servers in AC and then relay it from there to the players' computers in NJ.

Because of NJ law there can be no partnership of equals as exists with compacts between other jurisdictions. The only way to do business with NJ is to become a client of the NJ system. Maybe other states will go along with this but the reality of US politics makes that somewhat unlikely. Maybe some small states will go for that because it's an easy way for them to get started but I don't see larger states like NY and California joining in under those terms. That could mean a forever fragmented US market unless NJ changes their Constitution to allow a true partnership of equals. As it stands today even if NJ does suceed in becoming the epicenter of US online gambling that will mean there will be zero possibility of US players ever rejoining the world wide player pool. And that should make most of us sad.

I don't see why that is true. I don't see why the NJ Constitution's prohibition against the NJ legislature authorizing gambling outside of AC without a referendum makes this true.

If no other solutions (which it seems like there should be, but I'm not thinking about it) the operator can just run out of state communications through their NJ servers and then from there to the players' computers and NJ deems the games to be taking place in AC because the servers the NJ players are communicating with are in AC.

If it was that simple would the UKGC not have been able to figure it out? They tried, they could not get past the point that the NJ system as it is currently set up is a strict one way street. It is not a matter of NJ players communicating with a server in AC the game must take place in AC. They define this as the computer that determines the winner of the game, ie. the RNG that is responsible for dealing the cards, that must be located in AC and under NJ control. You can not get past that.

"They define this as the computer that determines the winner of the game, ie. the RNG that is responsible for dealing the cards, that must be located in AC and under NJ control. You can not get past that."

Who is they? Can you cite this? I'm not saying that you are wrong, but who says this? The who is important.