Oklahoma Tribe to Host International Poker Site

The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma may be on the verge of opening the first ever US online poker site that also accepts international players. Recently, the tribe won a favorable decision from an arbitrator who agreed that the tribe’s plan to open a real money poker site would not violate any state or federal laws. Now, they’re just waiting for a US District Judge in Oklahoma City to certify the decision.

If everything goes as planned, the Iowa Tribe will go live with real money operations in 2016. The website will be PokerTribe.com and, according to reports, the tribe has long prepared for the launch. If the judge approves, they have plans to go live soon after. A manager from the tribe’s software development company (Universal Entertainment Group) said:

“If the judge agrees to the thing, it could be launched within a matter of weeks. I and our entire team have been working on this for many years.”

This is not the first attempt at online poker by an Indian tribe, but PokerTribe.com looks somewhat more feasible based on the fact that it will only accept American customers from states that have already legalized online poker. Presumably, players from Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware would be able access Poker Tribe from the first day. After that, residents of other states will have to wait until their governments legalize online poker.

The site also plans to accept players from “anywhere around the world.” Although, it isn’t clear if they mean people from literally all other countries will be accepted or if international law will be applied or what. In any case, it is definitely a departure from what we’re used to with US-based poker sites in NV, NJ and DE.

Too Early to Celebrate

This isn’t the first time a US-based tribe has tried to leverage its sovereign status to offer online poker. Other tribes have considered and even attempted similar ventures to no success. So far, none has been a success. Legal battles between tribes and authorities and a severe lack of funding have hindered previous attempts at tribal online gambling.

So, I believe it is too early to celebrate the impending arrival of the next online poker boom in the United States. The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma only consists of 800 members and is sorely lacking in funding, personnel and expertise in online gambling. A quick look at the current edition of the website says it all:

Furthermore, a press release from the tribe’s website inadvertently included some concerning information about how the idea came about and who will be developing the software. First, I’ll show the pertinent text from the press release and then explain why it is troubling.

“The opportunity was then presented to the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma by the online gaming software developers, Universal Entertainment Group, (“UEG”) for their nationwide and international air, land, and sea online gaming platform and marketing strategy. Finally, once our Tribe had an opportunity to review all the facts, we were able to see this as a positive opportunity for our Tribe, including present and future generations of Tribal members.”

As CalvinAyre.com noted, this isn’t UEG’s first attempt at online poker. Back in 2013, this same group collected $9.5 million from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes to develop PokerTribes.com. A new tribal governor decided to call off the whole deal for unclear reasons and PokerTribes.com sat in internet limbo, looking for a new owner.

So from what I can gather now, the company that developed the original poker site for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes reached out to the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma to try again. They plan to operate under PokerTribe.com this time around and hopefully make it happen.

The other big challenge is one of funding. Even if PokerTribe.com manages to avoid the pitfalls of its forebearer, it faces the uphill challenge of convincing residents of other countries to abandon their established poker providers such as Bet365, PokerStars and Full Tilt. All this needs to be accomplished by a tribe of some 800 members.

It would be awesome if this new Oklahoma online betting effort is a success, but we need to manage our expectations. We’ve seen similar approaches before and gotten our hopes up only to be disappointed. Anything is possible, but we’re not going to break out the champagne just yet in regards to the potential for Oklahoma online poker being legalized anytime soon.