The rush is on! Just like the California Gold Rush that began at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma California and saw 300,000 people from as far away as the Sandwich Islands, Latin America and all over the United States storm that state in 1849, Forty-Niners of a new sort are storming Nevada. The Silver State is so named because of the Nevada Silver Rush of 1858 that brought tens of thousands of would-be millionaires to the state which would later become the brick-and-mortar gambling capital of the world. Silver deposits could literally be shoveled off of the surface of the desert floor, as they did not run underground in veins like gold. Today more than 150 years later, modern-day individuals and companies are hoping to strike it rich on the same ground where so many vast fortunes were made.

Since the passage of legal online poker play in Nevada late last year, more than 30 companies and corporations have filed for an interactive gaming license in that state. The climate over so many millions of years of desert conditions allowed silver minerals to be pulled out of their volcanic host rocks and turned to silver chloride. The climate of Nevada in the 1840s and 1850s allowed the dust and wind to then concentrate these supergene enrichments of silver ore into heavy gray crusts called horn silver. And companies like Churchill Downs Incorporated, most famous for hosting horseracing’s Triple Crown event the Kentucky Derby, are hoping the climate in Nevada these days is just as favorable for making money through online poker.

Back in those early days a large silver bed could be 50 to 100 feet wide and more than a mile long, and the silver found lying on the desert floor in that area had a value of more than $27,000 a ton in 1860, equating to more than $1 million a ton in present-day money. As vast as the wealth was that was created from the Silver Rush, Nevada and the states around it were picked clean in a few decades. However, the virtual world is going nowhere, meaning that Nevada poker play could provide wealthy streams of silver and gold-like wealth to online poker players and smart companies who get in on the ground floor. And the money available could make Nevada’s Silver Rush look poor in comparison, as even the lowest estimates run into the billions of dollars.

As mentioned above, Churchill Downs is most noted as the site of the Kentucky Derby, thoroughbred horse racing’s most storied and respected race annually. Just last week however, the company applied for an interactive gaming license in Nevada. The first two licenses have already been approved and sold to Bally Technology and Interactive Gaming Technology, two competing slot machine manufacturers who make Nevada their home.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board confirmed on Wednesday that Churchill Downs Incorporated officials expressed their interest in exploring opportunities in online poker in Nevada, as they seek to partnership with businesses concerned with ventures outside of horseracing. Paddy Power and William Hill are two English bookmaking companies with horseracing assets that also applied for a license, but the smart money is on the American owned and operated Churchill Downs to receive the go-ahead and become licensed ahead of those two interests from across the pond. In related news, Churchill Downs purchased poker dedicated Bluff magazine recently, and appears to be prepared to seriously enter the world of online poker in Nevada.