South Point Poker’s dreams of having the new Nevada online poker market to itself for upwards of three months are unlikely to happen, with news reports asserting that testing delays and negotiations between South Point and Nevada officials will likely push South Point’s real-money debut to December or to early 2013.
The pushback means that the Nevada market is likely to open with a de facto multi-site situation, as three or four different companies are likely to debut competing sites within a tight window spanning several days or a couple of weeks.
Besides South Point, another early market entry is likely to be the Ultimate Poker brand and site under development by Fertitta Interactive, an offshoot of the Station Casinos family. The Ultimate Poker site is likely to debut separately from future Station-branded only sites, which also continue forward under a separate license.
Ultimate Poker is also unconnected with the now-defunct UltimateBet online poker site that has been immersed in scandal for the last several years.
South Point continues to push forward where it can in preparation for its own market opening. Last week the site posted 17 job openings connected to the new online offerings, primarily in marketing, site operations, compliance and security.
South Point has also pulled down its earlier long-running, play-money-only poker site, with former players there to be redirected to the new venture when it is approved for public use. That site was opened in late 2011 but featured a different software platform than what will be used in the upcoming real-money offerings.
