There’s important news this month and it comes in two forms. First, the state of Nevada has passed regulations for the start up of Internet poker on an intrastate scale. That is only inside the state of Nevada. And second, the Department of Justice has issued a ruling that says the Wire Act, which has something to do with making bets across state lines, only applies to sporting events.

Both of these are important. First, Nevada, in a short period of time, perhaps only a few months, should have the mechanism in place, and licenses issued for the beginnings of Internet poker. Second, this new ruling from the DOJ may allow Internet poker to spread across state lines either by letting different states band together as they do in some lotteries, or by just permitting a licensed company inside a state to accept customers nationwide as long as the state in which some of these customers live does not object.

It all sounds too good to be true, and that’s the problem. It all may be too good to be true. In fact, we at Two Plus Two, at the time of this writing (Dec. 29, 20011), don’t know what it means. In our forums, there is a wide variety of speculation. Some of it is as optimistic as what I have written above, and some essentially says that these two events are only the beginning of what will be a long tough road before we see Internet poker at the level which was previously available before the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

Fortunately, we at Two Plus Two are advised by a competent legal team that has much expertise in this area. Again, opinions will differ not only among our posters but among attorneys who specialize in Internet Gambling law. However, we feel that our legal team is as knowledgeable as they come, and we will be meeting with them shortly after the first of the year in an attempt to figure out what all this means, what is likely in the near and distant future, how we at Two Plus Two should proceed, and what it means to all the people who read and post on www.twoplustwo.com.

Anyway, as soon as we know more, I’ll pass the information on. At this point in time, we are certainly cautiously optimistic, but I wouldn’t bet the house just yet. So stay posted.