What do Shuffle Master, NetEffect Networks, Inc. and Spielo International’s Austrian, Canadian and US branches all have in common? They are all service providers who have applied for interactive gaming licenses in Nevada in the hopes of cashing in on the oncoming billion-dollar United States online poker marketplace. And if you want to call the rush to receive some of the first licenses in the United States allowing you to legally offer some type of service or product in the newly legalized online poker environment in Nevada a horse race, there are a few companies well-versed to provide some racing competition.

Churchill Downs Incorporated is obviously best known as the owners and host of the thoroughbred horse racing Triple Crown event known as the Kentucky Derby, and they join English bookmakers William Hill and Paddy Power as companies with racing experience who have applied for an initial online poker license in Nevada. Nevada based slot machine makers International Game Technology and Bally Technologies were approved for the first two online poker licenses in the Silver State, and companies and corporations from many diverse fields have enviously applied for the same designation as well.

888 Holdings, ACEP Interactive, LLC and Aristocrat Technologies are all companies who could act as service providers and manufacturers of physical products providing online poker in Nevada, and all three wait with fingers crossed for word from the powers that be in Nevada as to their online poker fate in that state. Gaming Laboratories International and BMM International were the first two independent testing laboratories to apply for interactive gaming licenses in Nevada, and both those companies passed muster, and are now poised to test hardware and other equipment that prospective online poker licensees will use to offer their product.

And even though more than 30 companies like Fertitta Interactive, LLC, The Golden Nugget, MGM Resorts Online, LLC and the Monarch Casino have all applied for online poker licensing in Nevada, the potential player pool is rather small. Despite the limited market possibilities, companies both with current business interests in the casino and entertainment industries, and of those looking to expand their business venues are smart enough to realize the ground floor opportunity that Nevada represents to the United States gambling market as a whole. While the average online poker player may not consider a company like Churchill Downs Incorporated as someone who would be interested in an interactive gaming license to offer online poker in Nevada, that company is actually well-versed in providing online gaming.

Churchill already operates TwinSpires.com, which is a web-based advanced deposits betting system for race tracks owned by that company and others around the United States. Churchill Downs has also acquired YouBet.com and Bluff Media, a multimedia poker brand based out of Atlanta, Georgia. And besides the famed Louisville racetrack that bears their name, Churchill Downs also owns casinos and resorts in Miami Gardens, Fl., Greenville, Ms., New Orleans, La. and the Arlington Park racetrack near Chicago. With Delaware the only other state to legalize online gambling and poker play, Nevada is moving forward aggressively in accepting and approving online interactive gaming applications, and is easily ahead of the rest of the US in that regard.