Delaware on course for online gambling launch

In an interview with CardPlayer Monday Delaware Lottery Director Vernon Kirk said that despite the technologically complex task of preparing licensing and regulation regimes, his organisation was on track to launch legalised intrastate gambling on October 31.

Kirk hinted that discussions on combining online poker player pools with Nevada and New Jersey have been taking place, and said that Delaware’s population may be relatively small at a million, but that it was nevertheless a desirable partner.

The DoubleDown games had proved popular with online punters, Kirk revealed, noting that those games won’t be the games that will be involved in the [real-money] e-gaming activity once it is legalised and implemented. A decision has not been taken yet on whether the DoubleDown games would be kept on as free-play attractions in addition to the real-money offer, he said. IGT will provide real-money gaming content eventually, however.

Kirk confirmed that Delaware licensees would offer online and mobile poker, along with video poker and slots initially.

“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,” he said.

Explaining the Scientific Games involvement, Kirk said that SG was the primary vendor, with 888 as the platform provider

“They are coordinating all the pieces of the puzzle. They are the responsible vendor to us. They do the payment processing, the geo-location, the player identification, and so on. That is all being coordinated by the people at Scientific Games,” he explained.

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