Like former MLB pitcher Steve Howe, who never let anything as trivial as multiple lifetime bans from baseball keep him from playing in the major leagues, online poker popularity is once again on a meteoric and phoenix-like rise. Approximately 5 years ago the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was signed into law in the United States, effectively ending the successful and popular run of online poker in the US in most people’s eyes. But ever since that landmark ruling, online poker play has existed in the United States. And despite US lawmakers efforts to prosecute, harass and harangue payment processors and online poker site operators, online poker seems to be back in a big way in the United States, and picking up steam.

There aren’t too many times when the US government comes a-knocking and you benefit financially from the encounter. We all know that the United States government, for those of us living here in the US, will get a hold of you in a hurry if you owe them money, but isn’t too experienced in giving money away. So it is understandable if the United States Department of Justice has decided to ask for help when they have $159 million to hand back to former Full Tilt Poker account holders who may have been “potential US victims” of the online poker company which was recently bought out by PokerStars. In a three-way agreement, the US DOJ requires PokerStars to pay back all the money owed to those account holders who lost money in the Full Tilt Poker scandal as part of buying that company. This will hopefully get the ball rolling in an effort to reimburse Full Tilt players whose accounts were frozen in April of 2011 on what has come to be known as Black Friday in the online poker community.

Imagine looking out your oceanfront balcony at the beautiful Pacific Ocean, the palm trees swaying gently in the breeze, the ocean smells reaching you as you stand in shirtsleeves, shorts and flip-flops … while you are working. Such is the life for professional poker player Tyler Forrester, a former Duke University student who says the only reason he is in Costa Rica is because of the anti-online poker stance in the United States. The successful online poker player has two large computer monitors in his bedroom where he plays Texas Hold ‘Em hours a day. The 28-year-old with a degree in Slavik literature from Duke recently remarked in an interview with several other US-born professional poker players who have fled to Costa Rica, “Tough life I’m living,” with a quick grin and laugh. But an underlying element of angst and frustration with United States federal authorities concerning online poker in the United States and its legalities is ever present.

Zynga is a game developer for mobile and social networking applications, and they have rapidly become the King of interactive gaming online. They have been in the works recently attempting to strike up partnerships with multiple on and off-line casino and gambling companies due to the recent change in online poker and online gambling legislation in the United States. In December of last year the Department of Justice flip-flopped their age old opinion regarding some forms of Internet gaming, and passed the ability to legalize and regulate Internet poker and other forms of online wagering to the state level.

Online poker in the United States in general and Nevada in particular moves ever so close with every passing month. Nevada, as you know, was the first state to legalize online poker play since the Department of Justice in the United States passed that choice to the state level. The DOJ reversed a policy they had steadfastly insisted on sticking by for years, when in December of 2011 they ruled that Internet poker is a game of skill, and could be regulated on the state level. And on July 26 gaming hardware and software bigwig Shuffle Master received approval as only the third company behind Bally Technologies and International Game Technology as a full-fledged Internet poker dealer in Nevada.