Peppermill Owns Four Casino Properties in Northern Nevada
A Nevada-based casino company, Peppermill Resorts, recently launched an online poker website. Peppermill Resorts online portal is a partnership with Ultimate Poker, a Las Vegas based software firm owned by the same people who own the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Legal Online Poker in Nevada
Last year, the state of Nevada approval online poker gambling for licensed operators. Like New Jersey and Delaware, licensees must also have a land-based gaming operation in the state. Unlike those states, the licensing process has not been comprehensive. The sheer number of gaming operations in Nevada (382) makes all-inclusive licensing problematic, so only a small number of companies have received permission to launch a gambling site.
Deposits through Live Venues
Peppermill’s management says Nevada players can make deposits from their main Reno casino, Western Village in Sparks. The company also owns three hotels in Wendover, Nevada, which also accept deposits for the poker website.
Gamblers will need to sign up online at the Peppermill.Reo.com/Ultimate web address. The process of opening an account is the same it would be at other licensed and unlicensed online card rooms. To make a deposit, people will have to visit one of the four locations discussed. This means that the clientele is likely to be confined to northern Nevada, where the Peppermill chain of casinos are found.
Interstate Online Poker Compact
It is possible the poker playing community at the Peppermill site could grow with time. In March 2014, the state of Nevada signed an interstate poker compact with the state of Delaware. Both states agreed to share their player databases. If other states legalize online gambling and then sign on to the iGaming compact, then Nevada poker sites might end up having a significant number of gamblers from across numerous U.S. states. At present, the gaming community is going to be rather small.
This can be a problem for online poker players. Unlike an online slot machine or even blackjack table, competition involves player versus player interactions. Poker involves several different variations: no-limit Texas hold’em, pot-limit Texas hold’em, Omaha holdem, seven-card stud, and so on. Online poker, like live poker played in a casino, is played at several different bet limits. To have a full range of options, a poker website needs hundreds or even thousands of players online at any given time.
Western Village Inn and Casino
Western Village Inn and Casino has a 27,000 square foot gaming area with 790 gaming machines and 9 table games. This is the main site for making deposits at the online casino. The company says “the safeguarded deposits eliminate the risk of giving financial information online”. The company owns three hotels in West Wendover: Peppermill Hotel Casino, Montego Bay Hotel Casino, and Rainbow Hotel Casino. The Peppermill Hotel has 823 gaming machines, 26 table games, a race book, and a sports book. The Montego Bay Hotel has 800 gaming machines, 39 table games, a race book, and a sports book. The Rainbow Hotel has 1,065 gaming machines, 34 table games, and the requisite racebook and sportsbook.
Three Nevada Online Gaming Sites
The Peppermill poker website joins two other operating websites in Nevada. The World Series of Poker website is owned by Caesars Entertainment. Real Gaming is owned by the South Point Casino. Ultimate Gaming, which powers the Peppermill site, is owned by Station Casinos. Station Casinos operates 17 different casinos in Nevada, under the Station, Fiesta, and Wildfire brands. Station Casinos was founded by the late Frank Fertitta Jr., who took the company public. In 2006, Frank Fertitta’s children used a leveraged buyout to take the company private once again.
These days, Station Casinos is owned by Fertitta Colony Partners, a partnership between Frank Fertitta III, Lorenzo Fertitta, and Colony Capital LLC. The Fertitta Brothers also own Zuffa, LLC., which is the owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Zuffa LLC bought the UFC in 2001. The Fertitta Brothers are billionaires, though the debt from the Station Casinos buyout is factored into their net wealth, so they are placed down the list of wealthiest billionaires.
