South Point Casino Launches Play Money Poker Site

The first online poker room branded with the name of a Las Vegas casino is set to launch Thursday, putting the owners in a position to take advantage of any future regulations that might allow real money online poker in the United States.

The site will be launched Thursday by the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa. Owner Michael Gaughan says that the site will initially only be open to members of the casino loyalty program, but will expand to the general public on October 17.

“It’s kind of a gamble,” Gaughan said. “I don’t know that much about online poker and I’m trying to learn about it with a free site.”

For now, the site will provide free poker to players, but will award some promotional prizes. For instance, Gaughan said that the site will award at least one seat to the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event.

But the real intent of the site is to be ready for any future movement in US law that makes it explicitly legal for him to offer real money online poker. By working with Nevada gaming regulators, Gaughan believes that the site will be ready to go for real money play almost immediately should that option be open to him.

According to Nevada regulators, the site is considered purely a promotional tool. Since it doesn’t currently feature real money gambling, the Gaming Control board did not have to give its approval to the site, though Gaughan did consult with them during the creation of the site.

While the South Point site will be the first one that features the name of a Vegas casino, they are not the first American casino group to get involved in online poker. Ceasars Entertainment is the owner of the World Series of Poker brand, and has a free poker site that uses the WSOP branding. Caesars has made it clear that they wish to enter the real money online poker market in the USA as soon as one is available to them, and they have already used the WSOP brand to create real money online poker in the United Kingdom.