The US’ first legal intranet gaming network went live today, enabling players in tribal casinos across the US to play games including online poker.
The Coushatta Indian Casino in Louisiana and Coyote Valley Casino in California were the first to sign agreements officially connecting their casinos on Atlantis Internet Group’s (ATIG) Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Casino visitors will be able to play poker, table games, slots, virtual horse racing, live online dealer games and a Powerball-style lotto product on one machine, with Atlantis looking to eventually roll the network out to Indian casinos across 28 US states.
ATIG’s Tribal Gaming Network was established in 2009 when the company was granted an opinion by the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) to operate its Virtual Private Network (VPN) in Indian casinos nationwide, the Nevada-based company said today.
While the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act 2006 banned deposits related to internet gambling already illegal under federal, state or tribal gaming laws, it also introduced exemptions for Indian casinos, intertribal internet gaming and US states that passed intrastate egaming laws.
On announcing the deal today, ATIG said following US DoJ shutdown of the leading US-facing sites in April last year, last year, ATIG’s Tribal Gaming Network Poker remained the only legal nationwide online poker for live cash allowed on Indian lands in the US. The US DoJ ruled last year that the 1963 Wire Act only banned cross border financial transactions for sports-betting and did not apply to other types of gaming-related transactions.
ATIG president and CEO Donald Bailey said: “We have a huge leg up on the competition, having mastered play-for-fun marketing sites since 2003. Now, based on the NIGC opinion, to date ATIG is the only gaming company that can legally offer online linking games other than bingo, nationwide for live cash, such as poker and progressive jackpots.”
Bailey said the new technology would also allow the games to be offered through mobile platforms such as Android, as well as on slots and kiosks within the casinos.
ATIG signed a licensing agreement with US-facing operator Cake Gaming in September 2009 to provide the poker platform.
