Delaware Begins its Online Gaming Adventure

Wednesday morning 28th August was a little bit of a landmark day in the state of Delaware, as the three Delaware casinos began offering free money casino games to visitors to their sites. The players were redirected to DoubleDown Casino which is owned by IGT the well known software and games provider. Delaware will be the first state in the US to offer real money blackjack, online slots, roulette and poker, and these will all be available by end of October this year. Nevada was of course the first state to offer real money online poker, but at present, and for the foreseeable future that is all they will be offering, and that is delivered by Ultimate Poker. Tom Cook, the Delaware finance secretary stated that, "This first phase will allow us to really get the players acclimated to the virtual world in a legalized environment." The free games will in fact stay online and be available for players from around the world to use, however when real money gaming is launched in October that will be a very different story.

Delaware will have very strict laws and legislation in place regarding real money gaming activity and the main and most important one is that you must be physically located in the state of Delaware to play them. The real money portal software will be provided by a joint venture between 888 Holdings and Scientific Games, and there is already talk of a mobile casino offering next year. When asked about possible revenues, a figure of $3.75 million in the first year was mentioned and Mr Cook said that, "We are being very cautious starting out here," Cook said. "As time goes on, just like any other revenue estimate, we will revise it."