Delaware to get Real Money Online Gambling on Halloween

While New Jersey is still set to be the first US state with a full scale online casino, Delaware has announced details for the launch of an online poker site in the US state, due to go live on Halloween.

Delaware have been running a freeplay online casino since August, after changes in American gambling laws allowed the setup of real money online gambling on a state by state basis. As such, they fell behind both New Jersey and Nevada in the race for online gambling, yet they still saw the importance of the freeplay exercise.

Indeed, their freemium casino has proved popular, and the next step in their move online will happen in just a few days time, as the director of the Delaware Lottery, Vernon Kirk, revealed: “We are doing poker. Some video lottery terminals, some video poker, some slot machines. We are kind of restricted right now because of the integration piece to our service provider, which is 888 Holdings. So we are restricted to those games for launch. They are working with other game content providers for integration, but it will still be a while.”

With operators gearing up for the launch of online and mobile casinos in the immediate future, the American gambling market is due to become a hot-bed of activity. With the 5th New Jersey online license having been awarded recently, that state is looking good for their November 26th launch, while Nevada will bring full scale online casinos live sometime in 2014.

The move to launch a freeplay casino first has proved a good one, and has helped the state collect player data prior to going live with real money gaming. Kirk continued: “The free games were more about the casinos creating the beginnings of a market database, rather than a learning experience. But they have been popular.”