This story is sponsored by Party PokerPartyPoker brand owner bwin.party digital entertainment has entered an agreement to provide a poker platform for California gaming tribe the United Auburn Indian Community (UAIC), subject to passage of enabling intrastate legislation.
The 10-year agreement would take effect on the date the partners launched online operations in the US’ most populous state and economy.
UAIC, which owns and operates the Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Sacramento, was previously in talks with 3D poker room PKR over a potential B2B deal in California.
bwin.party did not however disclose if the agreement would allow for the company’s PartyPoker and WPT poker brands to run on the platform alongside the United Auburn tribe’s. Under the terms of a JV bwin.party announced last November, casino groups MGM and Boyd would be entitled to 25% and 10% of the spoils from a company offering bwin.party’s poker brands to US players in a federally regulated US market. A spokesman declined to give further details when contacted by Casino Choice.
bwin.party co-CEOs Jim Ryan (pictured) and Norbert Teufelberger said that the partnership would be “well-placed to seize the opportunities that will arise if appropriate online poker legislation is enacted in the Golden State.”
UAIC tribal chairman David Keyser said that they saw the legalisation of online poker and other real-money games as “inevitable”, and that the agreement made them “confident of being able to maximise the revenue opportunity from a regulated online poker market in California.”
California’s gaming tribes however remain largely opposed to the most recent draft of enabling legislation introduced by Senator Rod Wright. Chairman of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians Mark Macarro recent told the Global iGaming Summit Expo in San Francisco said there wasn’t a single California tribe that supported SB1463.
