Real Gaming Officially Becomes Nevada’s Third Online Poker Site

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Wednesday, October 29th, 2014 | Written by Stephen Smith

After eight months in the “soft-launch” phase of testing, South Point Casino’s online poker site RealGaming.com has officially entered Nevada’s online poker market, where it will now compete against WSOP.com and Ultimate Poker for a slice of the state’s regulated iPoker revenues.

RealGaming.com originally launched back in February, but subsequently underwent a testing period during which time it was stringently tested by state regulators, as it attempted to iron out initial teething problems and fine-tune its product. Last week, the Nevada Gaming Commission then finally gave the green light for the testing period to end, leading to RealGaming.com fully launching its brand in the Silver State.

Testing Period Over

In 2011, SouthPointPoker.com (now RealGaming.com) was the first free-to-play poker site launched in Nevada, and in 2012 South Point Casino became the first state operator to be granted a remote gambling license. For a while, it then looked like RealGaming.com would become the first real money website to launch in Nevada, but a number of problems had to be ironed out post-launch, including general bugs, faulty software, and age and geolocation issues, during which time Ultimate Poker then WSOP.com became the state’s first regulated poker sites. Commenting on the delay, Jason Reynolds from pokersites.com, explains:

“The delay may have been due to the fact that, unlike its competitors, Real Gaming developed its proprietary software completely in-house, which meant it required more stringent regulatory testing. Ultimate Gaming, which beat its competitors by releasing a simple product that allowed it to get into the market first, purchased CyberArts software in order to build its platform, while WSOP.com uses software developed by 888.com.”

Gaming Control Board Approval

Following a special meeting held by the Gaming Control Board in Carson City, a favorable recommendation was passed onto the Nevada Gaming Control Board which subsequently ended RealGaming.com’s testing period. Commenting on the decision, Real Gaming CEO Lawrence Vaughan said the control board expressed satisfaction that the site no longer had any player verification issues, and that the company’s geolocation technology was now successfully locating just those players within the state, as required by Nevada gaming legislation.

Time To Increase Traffic

According to poker tracking site PokerScout, from Nevada’s three regulated online poker rooms, WSOP.com is the market leader averaging 85 cash game players over a week, with a 24 hour peak of 246 players; followed by Ultimate Poker with 55 cash game players and a 24 hour peak of 130 players.

Real Gaming, on the other hand, is currently showing 0 cash game players and a 24 hour peak of just 3 players, but the operator is confident that its marketing efforts can now help bring a renewed interest in its site, as Real Gaming’s product is more complex than its rivals, and the business claims that “by utilizing the latest technologies” it will be “able to deliver new experiences to our customers like never before.”

In addition, whilst RealGaming.com has been open for account verification since August 2013, and soft launched in February 2014, up until now Real Gaming’s marketing drive has been limited to South Point ’s existing land-based casino customer base. With the soft launch period now in the past, the company said it will be extending its marketing push to reach a wider audience, which should hopefully help kick start a new chapter in the site’s history.

New Marketing Push

As part of its real money poker drive, RealGaming.com is currently offering a number of promotions to help increase its market share in Nevada. Amongst the promotions displayed on the site is:

1: “High Hand of the Hour” which lets players win a cash prize between $5 and $100 if they have the highest hand during select hours of the day.

2: “Quadzilla” which gives players a bonus cash prize of between $5 and $50 whenever they make four-of-a-kind using just their pocket pair.

(In addition, Real Gaming will reward extra money for those players winning either of these two promotions and announcing the news on Twitter or Facebook.)

3: “The Real 50” which is a $7,000 Monthly Giveaway and $16,000 Annual Giveaway for ranking in the top 50 online poker players each month on the site.