For those of you who’ll be in Las Vegas on Friday, July 6, make sure to come to the Annual 2+2 Party which is being held at The MGM Grand Hotel & Casino. Doors will open (so to speak) at 5:00 pm, the buffet is scheduled to be served at 6:00 pm, and we’ll be in the poker room. Rob Moore, Poker Room Manager at the MGM Grand, is going all out for us, so expect a great party. If you do plan to make it, please let us know in the RSVP thread in our Las Vegas Lifestyle Forum.

The other news of interest is that progress is being made in the area of Internet poker in the United States. Our home state of Nevada is currently in the process of licensing companies that will offer Internet poker. Based on conversations that we are currently having, we expect to see Nevada Internet poker in the first quarter of next year, perhaps even earlier, and these will be real money games.

However, this will only be for those who live in the state of Nevada, but hopefully other states will soon be joining in. In fact, at the time of this writing, we have just received news that the legislature for state of Delaware has passed an Internet gambling law that will include Internet poker, and the governor is expected to sign it. So the process has begun.

Also at this time, the World Series of Poker is going strong in Las Vegas. This means that in addition to the games and tournaments at The Rio where the WSOP is located, there are lots of games and tournaments all over town. For those interested, there is much discussion in the appropriate forums.

Other than that, we at 2+2 hope to see all of you at the party, and feel free to stop by where I’ll be sitting and say hello not only to me, but to all the 2+2 team that makes our website and our publishing company possible. And a special thanks to Rob Moore, Poker Room Manager at The MGM for having us as their guests.

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.