ChiliGaming Network, established in 2006, now plans to expand to the United States and, what is more important, to do it lawfully. Although not something that has never been tried before, their concept is a subscription-based operation in which there is no actual money transfer at the tables. Players pay a monthly fee instead that contributes to the “prize pool” of the play money games. According to US law, this is a way to play online poker legally.
There have already been attempts to introduce legal sites after the UIGEA that use(d) this method, but not many of them have managed to get by. Nevertheless, ChiliPoker seems optimistic: “We are very excited about this new dimension to our business. Our economies of scale will help this be a strong mechanism for further growth and it will help fill the void that exists in markets where online gaming is restricted and consumers want to play poker,” company CEO Alexandre Dreyfus commented.
At the same time, Full Tilt Poker announced that they follow suit after PokerStars banned its Washington-based players from real-money games as a consequence of a State Supreme Court decision. Accounts remain playable from outside the state and cashing out is possible within the borders of Washington as well.
