In breaking news from Delaware, the state’s three land-based casinos launched free-to-play online gambling on Wednesday. As a USA Today article on Wednesday touted, “At 6:00am ET, each Delaware casino’s homepage directed visitors to the Facebook-linked game platform DoubleDown Casino, run by slot machine company IGT, one of Delaware’s contractual slots vendors. Delaware remains on track to be the first state in the nation to offer a full compliment of legal casino games online.” Real money games are slated to go live in October, beating New Jersey to market by one month.

The free money games in Delaware are open to anyone. Tom Cook, Delaware’s Secretary of Finance, was quoted in USA Today as saying, “This first phase will allow us to really get the players acclimated to the virtual world in a legalized environment.” USA Today added that mobile gaming is also in the works. The state’s Governor signed the internet gambling bill in June 2012.

Despite beating New Jersey to market, Delaware was apparently aiming to come online even sooner, according to USA Today: “The October launch date for real online gambling is a month later than state officials were shooting for when they awarded a contract for designing and operating the system earlier this year.” Instead of a September launch date, Delaware officials will have to settle for October.

Delaware is also reaching across state lines and, according to Cook and the Associated Press, is looking into a compact with Nevada. In the desert state, only online poker is permitted. A compact between New Jersey and Nevada could also be in the works and could come to fruition as soon as next year, according to the CEO of MGM. PokerNews added that Delaware could potentially be interested in a compact with nearby New Jersey, which will launch full-blown online gambling sans sports betting in November.

In Delaware, the state’s lottery oversees internet gambling, and the three licensed casinos in the state are Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway. According to 4flush, the revenues generated from online gambling might not be as rich as first thought because of the late start date: “Cook… had initially estimated the state would rake in $3.75 million from online gambling in 2013’s final few months. That figure will now be much lower, perhaps $2 million, and the state will probably endure trimmed 2014 revenues as well from their initial projections.”

See what’s brewing in our Delaware poker community.

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