This Halloween, Thursday, October 31, 2013, Delaware will become the second state in the country to legalize online poker for its residents. Delaware was the first state in the U.S. to legalize intrastate online poker, but it fell behind Nevada in getting their online poker live.
As part of Delaware’s online poker regulatory controls, all demand in the state will be consolidated to one poker platform that players can choose to access from any of three different branded poker sites.
This also opens the door for Delaware to partner with Nevada, the first state to launch legal online poker, and New Jersey, what will become, later in November of this year, the third state with intrastate online poker, in allowing residents of each other’s states to play real money online poker at partner states’ sites. Currently Nevada has one poker site, Ultimate Poker, and New Jersey, when its online poker launches in November, will launch at least 5 sites that have already received licenses.
Such partnerships between Delaware and these other states, however, do not currently exist, which bodes poorly for Delaware’s real money player pool, considering its population (only about 1 million) is but one-third that of Nevada, and Nevada’s singular poker site only reports 250 or so players at its peak.
Delaware did already launch free play versions of online poker to players in the state as of August 2013. Delaware’s real money online poker platform will be 888 Poker and IGT. On its October 31st launch, Delaware will offer online poker as well as limited video lottery, video poker, and online slots.