If you love playing online poker and would like to get on board with one of the founding companies that plans to be the first to virtually shuffle up and deal in Nevada, you may be interested in the following news report. South Point Poker has officially announced that they are hiring to fill multiple marketing, customer service, regulatory compliance and technology positions for their Summerlin, Nevada headquarters. Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Vaughan stated that the headquarters are not located in Michael Gaughan’s South Point hotel-casino because his company does not view themselves as a casino, but rather as a creative software company, and they want to stay focused exclusively on providing a premier and enjoyable online poker experience. 

While the company still hopes to be the first to actually deliver real money online wagering in Nevada, they pushed back their plans to offer real money wagering this month, as they are still going through technical testing with regulators and gaming labs. Just recently South Point Poker shut down their free play site that they launched a year ago to begin building a player pool, in order to make sure there is no confusion between a “free play” and “pay for play” experience. South Point received the first Nevada interactive gaming operators license in August, and Vaughan said that online poker in Nevada probably will not take place on a pay for play basis until early next year.

He also proclaimed that while “we feel we could launch today” the State Gaming Control Board is going above and beyond to ensure the first ever experience from the first ever interactive gaming operator in Nevada is a smooth and enjoyable one for all parties concerned. Vaughan went on to state that he is happy that his company is being tested so thoroughly because the last thing they want is “to come out and fall flat on our face and be an embarrassment for Nevada.” When questioned about the removal of the free play site, he stated that his company’s goal of collecting thousands of players in a player pool was successful.

If you are a software developer, customer service representative, poker investigator or graphic artist, you can check out the requirements for the seventeen new jobs which were listed October 15 on the company’s website. Vaughan said that the initial goal is to open the company with about 40 employees, and that his obvious hopes are the company is so successful that they grow exponentially, thereby providing jobs for many more would-be online poker employees. He also mentioned a salary range from $25,000 to six figures annually.

South Point Poker is one of approximately a dozen separate companies which have either already been awarded a Nevada online intrastate poker license, or are hoping to receive a license this week from the Nevada Gaming Commission. Those companies include Boyd Gaming, the Golden Nugget, Ultimate Poker, Bally Technologies, Shuffle Master (now SHFL Entertainment), PokerTrip Enterprises and WMS Industries as well as others. Three big names in the physical casino industry which have also applied for licenses are MGM Resorts International, Wynn Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. In related news, Boyd Gaming expects to need approximately 20 to 30 employees initially, while Ultimate Poker said that roughly new 100 jobs would be created at their company thanks to online poker in Nevada by 2013.