World-class athletes are competitive by their very nature. But even a physically gifted and skilled athlete like professional tennis player Rafael Nadal can not sate his competitive appetite in a physical manner when he is forced to sit out with a seven month knee injury. As you can imagine, someone as competitive as Nadal, one of the top ranked men’s tennis players in the world, had to find another way to keep his competitive instincts fine-tuned while rehabbing, and Raffy as he is known to his fans turned to online poker.

Online poker players can be as patriotic as the rest of their countrymen, no matter what country they come from. But when you make a good living online playing poker, and your country’s justice system shuts down the companies where you earn your money, your hand has been forced. That is what happened when the US effectively banned online poker in 2011 by shutting down the big three online poker sites. United States Online poker players who love their country were forced to make a very difficult decision.

Since the economic downturn of 2008 in the United States, money just doesn’t seem to be as powerful as it once was. The price for a gallon of gas to fuel your vehicle has skyrocketed, along with the price of common grocery staples like milk. Unemployment numbers are at catastrophic levels, and everyone is looking for a way to stretch their paycheck. US friendly online casino Bovada has decided to help, and they are currently running online poker qualifiers for this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in Las Vegas.

Fantasy football and baseball are the two kingpins of fantasy sports. A recent study shows that more than 30 million Americans enjoy fantasy football, and all fantasy sports generate nearly $1 billion in revenue in the United States alone. And fantasy fanaticism has grown to include fantasy basketball, fantasy NASCAR and even fantasy golf. Earlier this year, Zokay Entertainment, the owner of the Global Poker Index (GPI), launched the Fantasy Poker Manager (FPM) in an effort to “promote poker as a competitive sport,” adding poker to the growing stable of fantasy sports offerings.

If you live in the United States, and enjoy social or pay for play gambling online, you probably know that Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware have all legalized some form of online gambling. Nevada made history as the first state to legalize online gambling in the form of poker after the United States Department of Justice allowed each state to individually legalize or outlaw online gambling in late 2011. The Silver State is prepared to make history once again, as they most likely will be the first state in the US to actually deal the first virtual hand of online poker since that landmark DOJ decision and online gambling legalization in that state.