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.

The rush is on! Just like the California Gold Rush that began at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma California and saw 300,000 people from as far away as the Sandwich Islands, Latin America and all over the United States storm that state in 1849, Forty-Niners of a new sort are storming Nevada. The Silver State is so named because of the Nevada Silver Rush of 1858 that brought tens of thousands of would-be millionaires to the state which would later become the brick-and-mortar gambling capital of the world. Silver deposits could literally be shoveled off of the surface of the desert floor, as they did not run underground in veins like gold. Today more than 150 years later, modern-day individuals and companies are hoping to strike it rich on the same ground where so many vast fortunes were made.

As reported on GamblingCompliance.com recently, Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada joined Senator John Kyl of Arizona in agreeing on the final text of a very important online poker bill. The two have been strong online poker proponents in their respective states for some time, and have in recent months jumped the virtual fence that separates the two states in an effort to provide a consolidated front concerning online poker legislation passage. The executive director of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), John Pappas, reported that the two have finished brushing up the proposed bill and are ready to get it to Capitol Hill.

Nevada has long been the top target for gamblers from the United States and around the world. Known worldwide as the premier destination for brick-and-mortar casino gambling, the Silver State stands poised to offer the first virtual hand of legal US online poker before any other US state. By adopting statewide legislation that legalized online poker play for its residents and travelers, Nevada seemingly holds all the cards in the online poker game in the US.

As reported by Ronda Churchill in the Las Vegas Review-Journal Wednesday, Irish poker powerhouse Paddy Power will soon play poker in Nevada … potentially. Paddy Power is considered by most industry analysts as the largest legal bookmaker in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, and they were given “a preliminary finding of suitability” to operate some type of online poker business in Nevada, Las Vegas in the United States. That is the first step towards Paddy Power offering online pay for play poker in Nevada, a state where they currently have no business interests.