Experts in the gambling realm gathered in Nevada in mid May 2012 for a meeting about the future of intrastate online poker within its borders. The Nevada Gaming Control Board came up with what seems to be a realistic timeline during the meeting, with games planned to be open to players in six to eight months. They’re aiming to have everything operational after this period of time with the next few months being used to issue licenses and the six to eight months after being used to get sites finished up and open.

Security is of the utmost importance to Nevada. This has been made evident in the planning stages, as the time before intrastate online poker is live will be used to take a closer look at the software and technology of approved and licensed sites.

Numerous online poker entities have joined up with existing brick and mortar casinos in Nevada for what they believe is the inevitable day that online poker is available there. One such business venture is the one between Bwin.party and MGM Resorts International. This is one of the most talked about as Bwin.party has a fantastic reputation due to the fact they are the company that controls the Bwin Poker download.

If you’re thinking that six to eight months is too long to wait for online poker to come back, there are other options. Many players have chosen to use online casino sites that offer games besides poker. Trying out online slots for real money can be a great deal of fun while waiting for online poker’s re-entry into Nevada.

Recently the online gambling giant Bwin.party made an agreement with the United Auburn Indian Community (UAIC). Because the UAIC runs the Thunder Valley Casino Resort in California, Bwin.party has put itself into a great position once poker is legalized within the state. Not only does California have a huge state population, it is also home to many professional poker players.

You may already know that Bwin.party runs the Party Poker download. When online poker is legalized within California, Bwin.party will also run the site that they put together with the help of the UAIC. The UAIC would be in charge of obtaining any necessary licenses from the state. The agreement states that the two entities would be in partnership for ten years after the start of their online games.

Californian Senators Wright and Steinberg introduced the Internet Gambling Consumer Protection and Public-Private Partnership Act of 2012 (SB 1463) back in February of this year. If the legislation is passed, it will regulate, license, and tax online poker within the state of California. Since no one knows when it will actually get passed, though, other companies still have plenty of time to link up with the appropriate gambling entity.

If you are a fan of casino games other than poker, keep in mind that this legislation will greatly benefit you as well. When online gambling is legalized, you will be able to play Undersea Treasure slots, Keno, or Bingo as much as you want. It’s safe to say that casino enthusiasts are hoping for legalization sooner than later.

The big names back in the day were Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim. The two of them played in the biggest games at the time, and it is no surprise that they became good friends. This was a long time ago, however. Age finally caught up to Slim, as just a couple days ago he passed away at age 83.

TV poker wasn’t very popular in the early days of poker, so players such as Slim had to rely on word of mouth to publicize poker. He did his part by winning an impressive four WSOP bracelets. One of these bracelets was from the WSOP Main Event in 1972.

Poker wasn’t the only form of gambling Slim enjoyed. Happy to wager on almost anything, he called himself the “World’s Greatest Gambler.” Can you imagine if he had access to the Internet and Craps online? He would have been gambling 24/7!

Slim was a good ambassador for poker since he was happy to be in the spotlight, unlike many other poker players. He was happy when the cameras were on him as he was playing big live events. He also appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson several times in the 1970s.

To round out Slim’s success in the poker world, his name was even mentioned in the popular poker movie, “Rounders.” We will always cherish him as one of the greatest pioneers of poker. He may not have achieved any great success on the best Euro poker sites, but he did pretty much everything else possible when it came to the game!

However, not everything about Full Tilt brings back bad memories. Full Tilt was successful in pioneering a totally original poker format that still has people talking to this day. It has people talking enough that PokerStars has brought over their own version of it.

Rush Poker was one of Full Tilt Poker’s most popular poker formats. The selling point of it was that the down time in poker disappeared. No longer did a player have to waste their time in between hands; they could either jump to the next table after they folded or simply click a quick fold button to go to the next table. Even though Full Tilt is gone, the demand for Rush Poker is not. The Everest Poker download hasn’t created the format yet, but PokerStars has!

PokerStars Zoom Poker is, for the most part, the same Rush Poker that everyone knew and loved. There is one big difference: players have the option to watch an entire hand at a table rather than just skipping off to a new table and new hand. Players were a bit dismayed at the beginning of Zoom Poker as it was just in its Beta stage and only offered small stakes and micro stakes games. Fortunately, just a few weeks later No Limit Hold ‘Em games were already running as high as $2.5/$5.

Expectations are high for the new fast poker game on PokerStars. Due to their impeccable past, PokerStars is almost sure to hit a home run with this new game. It will take some time for Zoom Poker to get out of its Beta phase and expand its buy-ins and game selection. If you’re like many who aren’t in the mood to wait for that, then perhaps you should take a look at real money slots for now.

States like Mississippi, New Jersey and Iowa have recently come close to enacting legislature that would set up intrastate online poker within their borders. Unfortunately, much like any other state that has tried to get intrastate online poker going, they fell just short of making it happen. It remains to be seen whether or not any states other than Nevada will have legal intrastate online poker this year. Nevada is aiming for the end of 2012 as the prospective date for legal online poker being live in their state. It will be the first time ever for legal online casinos for USA players.

Though Utah is perhaps the most anti-gambling state in America, this is a big step and somewhat of a shock. Whether or not other states take this step (of opting out of legal online poker) remains to be seen. Utah has made online gambling of any sort a misdemeanor offense in their state. In the event that online gambling is established at a federal level, if an opt-out clause is allowed for states, then Utah has included language in their legislature that already opts them out.

While you can’t make a Cake Poker download in Utah, you can still do it everywhere else in America. Feel free to play on Cake until poker is legalized and more options are made available for you.

The biggest boom that poker has seen thus far came in 2003 when an unknown accountant from Tennessee became the World Series of Poker Main Event champion. Chris Moneymaker served as a catalyst for the online poker boom, and it seemed like everyone was making a Party Poker download at the time. Moneymaker also became a representative of PokerStars by becoming a sponsored pro. Douglas Tirola’s upcoming documentary “All In: The Poker Movie” looks to cover these moments and more.

The documentary will take a look at poker’s history, covering the moments that have come to define the game. Much of the documentary will focus events based around Moneymaker’s epic victory in 2003 that lead to an unbelievable increase in hopeful poker players, especially in the online arena. Tirola’s documentary will take a look at poker’s biggest moments as well as the low points for the game. The low points for US friendly poker sites will likely focus on April 15, 2011, otherwise known as Black Friday.

Also included will be information about the earliest major players in the poker game such as Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim. Many of the newer players to the game may not know about the beginnings of the game which included games spread out across Texas. The film will be centered upon the game in America but should have lots to offer to any poker fan, American or not.

“All In – The Poker Movie” comes out in theaters on March 23, 2012 and will be available on iTunes on April 24, 2012. It will feature Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Daniel Negreanu as well as Damon, Moneymaker and others in the poker world.

While you are waiting for the movie to come out on the 23rd, you could pass some of the time playing 3d slots. Relatively new to the online casino arena, they are taking the gambling world by storm. You might even find that they are a major upgrade from traditional slots.

Those in the U.S. that still wish to play online poker do so at their own risk. It is probably safe to say that any site serving America today can disappear at a moments notice. The Merge Gaming Network and the Cake Poker download both offer games to Americans still, and up until recently so did Everleaf Gaming.

Everleaf Gaming’s popularity had been going down recently, but they still existed thanks to traffic they got by staying open to Americans. They had been closed to those living in Malta, but everyone else was fair game. Recently they decided to close doors to both the U.S. and France, however.

Everything started when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted an investigation. They ended up seizing the funds of a payment processor that was serving the Everleaf network. In response, the Maltese Licensing Authority met with the owners of the network and recommended that they stop serving those in the United States. Everleaf Gaming is licensed by the Malta Lottery and Gaming Authority.

As was the case with Full Tilt and UB, Americans that were playing on Everleaf are now faced with the question of what will happen to their funds. It is unclear whether they will get paid, and how long it will take if the answer is yes.

Obviously it is impossible to tell whether or not the Department of Homeland Security will try to get rid of the remaining sites that are offering online poker to Americans, but it probably isn’t out of line to believe that these sites should be very worried at the moment. It almost seems like it’s merely a matter of time.

Perhaps Americans should stick to online casino gambling that isn’t poker. For example, online video poker is offered on a lot of casino sites that are open to U.S. players right now. While nothing is 100%, it seems like these games are a lot safer than online poker at the moment.

As explained yesterday, Washington D.C. had passed a bill that allowed legal online casino gambling within their jurisdiction. Because it was part of a budget bill, however, a few council members disagreed with the way the bill was made law. They also had a problem with Intralot, the Greek company that was contracted to run the gambling site. It wasn’t made clear how the company was awarded their contract in the first place, and they disliked this.

On the first of this month, the Finance Committee of the city council met up and repealed the online gambling bill by a count of 3-2. This means that games such as Internet slots will have to wait before they are legal in Washington D.C.

Washington D.C. is stalled, but other jurisdictions are still trying to obtain legal intrastate online gambling. Currently Jeff Danielson, the state senator of Iowa, is planning to introduce a bill at the end of the month that would legalize online gambling in the state. Danielson was recently quoted as saying that he thinks a “handful of states will authorize it (online poker).”

The bill in Iowa is, of course, not without its opponents. Jeff Kaufmann, state representative, is in the opinion that gambling has a negative impact on families. However, potential tax revenues from online gambling are very high. The Iowa Racing and Gambling Commission has estimated that tax revenues will range anywhere from 3 to 13 million dollars!

Other states planning to legalize online casinos for USA players are Connecticut, Florida, California, and New Jersey. And there is, of course, Nevada, the state that is closest to intrastate legalization. They have already passed legislation for the cause.

The bill to allow poker was initially passed by being written into a budget bill which would allow poker and casinos for USA players on the internet in the district. The 30-day objection period ended with no problems, with Congress having nothing to say about the bill. The bill then became a law. However, when council members discovered how the bill was sent into action, quite a few of them were unhappy.

Councilman Tommy Wells found so much of a problem with the law that he introduced a bill to repeal the online gambling bill. Two of his fellow council members support repealing the gambling bill. However, he has not garnered the support of the other ten council members. Wells and his supporting council members have also raised concern with Intralot, the Greek lottery vendor that has a $39 million contract with Washington D.C.

During a January 26, 2012 meeting about online gambling in Washington, D.C. it was mentioned by D.C. lottery officials that if and when the project is allowed to move forward, the website offering online video poker and other games could be launched within 30 days. If and when the situation is settled, it will leave Washington D.C. in a good position to have legal online poker up and running in a short time.

At this moment in time, Nevada and Washington D.C. are the only two jurisdictions that have successfully approved online gambling. No states offer online poker as of yet. However, several states including Nevada look to be able to offer it before the end of 2012.

They may have the biggest site, but PokerStars hasn’t had the easiest time the last year or so. They dealt with Black Friday last April, and they have also lost some key members of their team since then. For example, John Duthie was a Team PokerStars member and also the creator of the EPT. However in December of last year, he chose against renewing his contract with the site. Is there a chance that he will download Roulette and try to get into the casino industry?

Thomas Kremser is another member of the team that left last year. Kremser acted as an EPT tournament director for PokerStars from 2004, but he decided to leave his job just a month after Black Friday. The online poker industry was very surprised that Kremser did this.

The most recent source of shock for the online poker industry came from the news that Gabi Campos, the PokerStars CEO, has decided to resign. Campos originally gained experience as an online poker executive after spending three years with 888Poker. He joined up with PokerStars in October 2010, and his last day of work will be January 31st.

Officials of the PokerStars download released a statement regarding Campos in the middle of January. It stated that “Gabi Campos has decided to step down from his position as Chief Executive Officer, effective Feb. 1, 2012, to pursue other opportunities .” It also mentioned that a “search for Gabi’s replacement is under way.”

Now the question is whether or not the replacement CEO will be someone already working for PokerStars, or whether it will be someone else in the industry with experience at another site. Everyone with a vested interest in PokerStars will certainly keep their ears perked for some news.