California has been in the news for considering the legalization of online poker but the state regulators are yet to make any official announcement. A few months back, the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel made headlines when it announced that it would go ahead and launch an online poker website in California saying that the state’s laws did not prevent the tribe for launching an online poker website. The tribe believes that since all of its servers are located on the reservation and governed by tribal law, it does not violate any of the policies enforced by the government of California.
The tribe announced that www.privatetable.com would be up and running, provide access to poker players who were based in California. The tribe has been unable to launch its online poker website till date and has faced a lot of criticism from the poker community for making false promises.
Earlier this week, the tribe confirmed that it was launching an online bingo portal for real money games. The new portal will be called Desert Rose Bingo and will only allow players based out of California to participate in online games that begin from $0.01 to $1. The Santa Ysabel tribe has collaborated with an igaming company called Great Luck LCC that specializes in developing technology that makes it easy for the Santa Ysabel tribe to be compliant with all gaming laws applicable in California.
Bingo players in California will be happy with the launch of the new online bingo site but poker players in California are not happy and believe the Santa Ysabel tribe made a lot of false promises. Responding to these opinions, Santa Ysabel Interactive Director of Marketing Chris Wrieden said
Some believe our promise to bring regulated cash poker games to California has all been a great big bluff, for any number of self-serving reasons. I can tell you it hasn’t been, it just takes time to put all of the pieces together. When we launch it will put our critics’ bluff theory to rest and when we accept our first online bet, we will be on our way to creating change for our industry.
Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel tribe officials have reassured online poker players in California to bear with them as they tribe plans to launch online poker operations before the end of 2014. California will consider the legalization of online poker once again in 2015.
