On February 19th, 2014 the third online gaming site in Nevada was launched, the South Point Casino’s online poker offering dubbed Real Gaming.
Real Gaming differs from the two other licensed US online poker rooms in Nevada in one very significant way; the site is browser-based, opening up in a new browser window through flash player, which means there is not a downloadable version of Real Gaming’s software.
In this review we’ll provide you with a complete breakdown of what the Real Gaming Nevada online poker room has to offer.
History of Real Gaming in Nevada
South Point can lay claim to being the owner of the first online operator license approved in Nevada, as South Point received approval from the NGC and NGCB in August of 2012.
The company was originally expected to be the first online poker product to hit the market in Nevada, but setbacks and the soon to be detailed branding changes pushed the launch back from late-2012/early-2013 to February of 2014—and it could be argued the launch should have been held off a bit longer.
Interestingly, South point had formed a partnership with Zen Gaming for their on-site online gambling options back in 2011, and Zen had developed the first online poker site for South Point (which they released a play-money version of) dubbed South Point Poker. But in the end South point developed their real-money online gambling platform in-house, a browser based poker room called Real Gaming.
As noted above, Real Gaming started off as South Point Poker, but the South Point Casino decided to switch from the eponymously named online poker room to a more generalized brand with less of a poker focus—perhaps envisioning a day when all casino games will be available online in Nevada.
Real Gaming launched on February 19, 2014 (the site is still in the trial phase) but so far the site has failed to attract players due to a number of bugs and inferior software, among other complaints.
The Companies behind Real Gaming
South Point is a relatively new casino, opening its doors to the public in 2005 on the southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard. Originally to be named South Coast, casino entrepreneur Michael Gaughan rebranded the property after selling his other casino interests to Boyd Gaming and assuming full control of South Point.
Real Gaming Rewards program in Nevada
Real Gaming’s VIP Program
Real Gaming’s VIP Rewards Program is known as Real Rewards. Real Rewards is a tiered VIP Program with six monthly levels and a single yearly level for high-volume players.
Each $1 in rake a player contributes earns them 2 Tier Rewards’ points, and players can then exchange their Real Rewards Points (not to be confused with Tier Points) for cash at the rate of 100 per $1. But there is a way to increase this exchange rate.
The higher the level a player achieves in the program the more Real Rewards Points they will accrue via multipliers (Tier Points are always earned at the rate of 2 per $1 in rake) and therefore the higher their cashback rate will be.
Bronze Level players receiving a 2% cashback rate (no multiplier), while Diamond Level players will receive 30% cashback (a 15x multiplier).
Real Gaming’s Nevada Deposit Bonus
Real Gaming is not offering a first time deposit bonus at this time, but the site is offering new players a 1% rake offer at certain tables.
Real Gaming Software
Games Offered
Real Gaming currently only offers Texas Holdem games.
Software and GUI
Without beating around the bush, at this time (and hopefully these things will be improved and/or corrected) Real Gaming is one of the worst online poker sites in the US industry from a game play standpoint.
As mentioned throughout this review, Real Gaming is using a flash based poker client, and although it is running the state of the art HTML5 their software is leaving a lot to be desired.
