Ultimate Gaming’s online poker gamble in the Silver State didn’t strike gold. After making history as the first legal US based online poker website since the Department of Justice paved the way for such possibilities in December of 2011, Ultimate Poker is shutting its virtual doors. The site had been in existence roughly 19 months. On April 30, 2013 the first legal, state regulated online hand of “real money” poker in the United States was dealt at the Ultimate Gaming website. Nevada was quick to legalize online poker after the DOJ ruling, and along with the state’s WSOP online poker site, Ultimate Poker shared roughly 50% of virtual poker traffic in the state until the last few months.  There are additional US online poker rooms available to Nevada players, but they are not based in the United States.

Organizations like the PPA, the Poker Players Alliance, are staffed by individuals with the interests of America’s poker grinders at heart. John Pappas is the Executive Director of the PPA, and he was recently quoted after conversations with several US state legislators held in New York that he believes that by “the end of January, middle of February in 2014 in California” that state will have reviewed, voted on and passed legislation legalizing Internet poker. In the past Pappas has been both optimistic and pessimistic concerning different pieces of legislation which offered legal web poker play at the federal or state level in the United States.

One of the huge benefits of online poker over the physical alternative is the ability to use software to improve your game. Online poker can be enjoyed as a fun and nonserious card game just like live play, and a lot of us enjoy logging on and playing every now and then just to relieve the stress after a long workday. But for those of us who want to improve our play, and thereby our financial return, a free online poker odds calculator has been released that will immediately and positively impact online poker success rates.

Ultimate Gaming was the historic first company to deliver a virtual poker hand since Nevada legalized online poker in the Silver State. Nevada was the first state to legalize online poker since Congress and the United States Department of Justice passed the ability to regulate online gambling to the state level in late 2011. Ultimate Gaming opened the Ultimate Poker website on April 30, and it took less than 72 hours to see thousands of users from all 50 United States and 20 countries sign up and open a pay for play account.

Nevada moved quickly to pass online poker legislation allowing its states residents and travelers to virtually shuffle up and deal after the United States Department of Justice made a flip-flop decision in late 2011. But it has taken more than a year to develop the infrastructure of what has now finally, and officially, become the first launching of legal online poker in the United States in some time. If you are in Nevada, you can skip the smoky live casino, and instead power up your smartphone or mobile PC to enjoy some online poker.