Exclusive: Phil Ivey Signs as Brand Ambassador for Tribal Online Poker in California

Professional poker player Phil Ivey is set to be the frontman for a joint venture between the Pala Band of Mission Indians and former bwin.party CEO Jim Ryan, pokerfuse PRO has learned.

The new entity, Pala Interactive, plans to offer online poker and casino games in California upon regulation within the state. And though the deal is currently limited to potential offerings in California, the agreement could be extended beyond the state at a later date.

Pala Interactive is slated to use software provided by Realtime Edge Software (RTE), a company that lists bwin.party, GTECH, RocketFrog and ClubWPT among its clients.

The company Pala Interactive LLC was registered in February 2013, public records show. Susan Basinger, an Attorney who lists the Pala Band of Mission Indians as a previous client, is the registered agent for the business. The domain PalaInteractive.com was registered in January.

Phil Ivey, a sponsored pro at Full Tilt prior to Black Friday, is today the face of Ivey Poker. The new venture acquired poker training site LeggoPoker, built an impressive roster of pros, and this week launched a social poker app on Facebook. The California deal is an unrelated brand agreement.

The success of Pala Interactive will depend on how the iGaming laws take shape in California. US regulators in Nevada and New Jersey have focused on suitability of key personnel for both licensees and service providers. Regulations so far proposed in California, supported by tribes, have also included such language.

Though Ryan’s most recent company, bwin.party, did not service the US market after that date, Ryan’s role as founder of Excapsa Software, CFO of CryptoLogic and his ties to UltimateBet.com—a company that admitted to cheating its players out of millions of dollars—may cause difficulties with regulators.

The possibility that tribal operators may self-regulate could circumvent issues that exist in other jurisdictions. However, draft regulations backed by California tribal leaders, including Robert Smith, Chairman of the Pala Band of Mission Indians, include language requiring licensees to be of “good character, honesty, and integrity” and restrict those “whose prior activities, criminal record, if any, reputation, habits, and associations do not pose a threat to the integrity of a gaming operation.”

In fact, Smith has spoken out publicly against the standard of regulations proposed in New Jersey, commenting that the state “appears to be weakening the eligibility requirements needed to obtain a gaming license.”

Software provider RTE also has ties back to UltimateBet. According to research done by Scott Bell, Ultimate Beat documentary maker, RTE provided audit services to UltimateBet that helped determine the amounts of the player refunds to be issued by UB after the cheating scandal was uncovered.

Bell also suggests that several engineers from ieLogic, a company co-founded by Greg Pierson, also a founder of UltimateBet, worked for RTE.