California tribe launches real money bingo, with poker coming soon

The Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel tribe in California has announced that they will soon offer real money poker games to California residents back in July, but there has not been much new information ever since regarding the launch date. Now they have launched a real-money bingo client, with real-money poker to follow "in days".

Currently real-money online gambling is prohibited in California, the plans to make online poker legal have been pushed back to 2015. 

According to the tribe, since "at no time is live bingo game action performed by the user", and since players play through VPN technology provided by Great Luck, Santa Ysabel states that all gambling takes place on their tribal land, which is regulated by the tribal government, and is in compliance with all the tribal laws.

The tribe planned to launch a real-money poker site back in July, but only put up a play money online poker client, but according to them, the problems have now been sorted out and they will offer real money poker "within the coming days...mostly likely within the next week or two".

Chris Wrieden, the Director of Marketing for Santa Ysabel Interactive, the tribe's online gaming company, has stated the following:

"Some believe our promise to bring regulated cash poker games to California has all been a great big bluff, for any number of self-serving reasons. I can tell you it hasn't been, it just takes time to put all of the pieces together. When we launch it will put our critic's bluff theory to rest and when we accept our first online bet, we will be on our way to creating change for our industry."

The poker software used for the play money games is a modified IG Soft poker platform, which is used by skins on the Winning Poker Network, namely Americas Cardroom, Black Chip Poker and BetCRIS.

From November 3, California residents aged 18 or over can purchase bingo cards on Desertrosebingo.com $0.01 all the way to $1.