The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) thinks that the Internet Gambling Regulation Enforcement Act of 2013 is the bee's knees.

This really shouldn't come as any shock to anyone that has spent even a little bit of time at a real casino in America, but it looks like some folks in Las Vegas, Nevada don't like Google Glass.

Ultimate Poker is the first online game to use real-world money in the United States. Of course players who want to take it for a spin will have to be physically located in the state where this game is legal to play: Nevada. Sometime today UltimatePoker.com is expected to launch the country’s first official fully legal online poker site where players can wager real-world money for the very first time.

GamesBeat has a partial edited transcript of a discussion that happened during the Social Casino Summit in San Francisco last week. The event was hosted by GamesBeat and Dean Takahashi. In the lead-up to the discussion Takahashi, who moderated it, notes that the social casino games sector may be small, but there are already more than 100 startups and big companies fighting with each other in the space.

Will Full Tilt Poker players left in the lurch after the Department of Justice shut the site down finally be getting their money back? It would seem that the answer is yes, but when exactly has not been determined quite yet, according to this Verge report. Back in April 2011 the Department of Justice shut the site down, alleging that Full Tilt Poker and two other gambling sites had circumvented U.S. laws by disguising payments from U.S.

New Jersey lawmakers have approved a bill that will make online gambling in the state legal, opening the door for companies in the space -- including game companies like Zynga -- to operate online games that provide real-money gambling. Of course, you won't be able to play these games unless you reside in a state where it is legal to do so. Currently there are three: Nevada, Delaware, and now New Jersey. Nevada passed its online gambling bill last week.

Online Gambling is now legal in Nevada, according to GamesBeat. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) signed legislation this week that legalized online gambling inside the state of Nevada. Both houses of the Nevada legislature passed the bill as an emergency measure so they could quickly get it passed and enact it before other states - like New Jersey - to reap the early benefits of companies eager to start taking advantage of the new law online.

Social game maker Zynga saw its stock get a substantial boost today as the prospects of an online gambling bill in the state of New Jersey that made its way to Governor Chris Christie's desk last week, and while he vetoed the bill, the Governor left the door open for an amended bill to garner his approval.

With just two more hours to go in its Kickstarter campaign, Goldfire Studios has managed to go slightly over its funding goal of $20,000 for its gambling-based MMORPG, CasinoRPG. As of this writing the Kickstarter raised $20,161 from 197 backers. The next step for the persistent virtual world gambling game is a private beta test, though some of that testing will likely be tied to various reward tiers.

As mentioned by E. Zachary Knight on Episode 39 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, today is the last day to contribute to the Kickstarter for Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Goldfire Studios' Vegas-themed MMORPG CasinoRPG.

Well it is official - the country of Antigua is one step closer to launching a legal piracy portal - according to TorrentFreak. At a meeting in Geneva, Switzerland today the World Trade Organization (WTO) officially granted Antigua’s request to suspend U.S. copyrights - confirming a 2007 preliminary authorization given by the WTO to the Caribbean island.

Gamasutra reports that Jonathan Flesher, who left social gaming giant Zynga in November of 2012, has joined gambling focused platform company Betable. Flesher is the former Vice-President of Business Development at Zynga. During his time there he secured a number of high profile celebrity deals that saw the integration of the personalities in many of Zynga's games. Those deals included the likes of Lady Gaga and Snoop Dogg.

According to a Wall Street Journal report unearthed by GII, Zynga is applying for a gambling license in the great state of Nevada. The company has shown a great interest in building social gaming properties for Facebook and its own social games portal that utilize online gambling and real-world wagers.

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the estate of Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien has filed an $80 million lawsuit against Warner Bros., its New Line subsidiary and the screen rights holder of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Saul Zaentz Co.

Big Fish Games has launched the first real-money gambling game in the United Kingdom through a partnership with Betable. The Big Fish Casino U.K. app lets players gamble for fun or make best with real cash via a new slot machine title. The game uses technology from Betable, a company hoping to take advantage of even more social mobile games in the future by enabling online gambling options.

Mark Methenitis, proprietor of the wonderful Law of the Game blog, will be crossing the pond to attend the International Bar Association Annual Conference in Dublin, Ireland (Sept. 30 - Oct. 5).

Public documents unearthed by the Wall Street Journal reveal that social games maker and publisher Zynga spent right around $75,000 in lobbying fees to get its point across to lawmakers in Washington D.C. and Sacramento. So what is on the company's agenda? It wants online gambling legalized so that it can start offering players of its online social games real-world cash.

UK-based game maker Gamesys has launched the first Facebook game ever that allows for real cash prizes. The game, available in the UK, is called Bingo & Slots Friendzy, and is the first on the Facebook App Centre to pay real cash prizes.

Bingo & Slots Friendzy is only accessible to those ages 18 and over, according to Gamesys, who promise "a series of controls" to protect those under 18-years-old and "vulnerable people." Users will also have access "self-help tools to limit their spending and exclude themselves from playing at anytime.”

The state of Delaware has decided to legalize online gambling today. The Delaware State Senate approved the bill by a 14-6 vote to allow online betting in the state. The next stop for the bill is the desk of Gov. Jack Markell (D) for his signature. With state and local governments seeing growing budgets and shrinking revenue, they have warmed up to the idea of allowing gambling both in their cities and online. The law is the second in the country to approve online gambling on a state level.

Ernst & Young LLP has named Greg Enell, CEO of Double Down Interactive, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year 2012 Award winner for the Pacific Northwest Region. Double Down is best known for its free-to-play casino games on Facebook. Ernst & Young says that the award recognizes "outstanding entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success" in a number of key areas including innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.

States across the Union are passing or debating laws that will make online gambling legal, either for their entire state, or – as is the case being discussed in New Jersey, presently – just in certain cities/areas. These legislative changes may represent a shifting in the ideals of voters, but the impetus is most certainly tax revenue and perceived job creation.

A new study from Charité University Medicine in Berlin has made a connection between the time a person spends playing a game with enlarged reward centers in the brain. The study published in Translational Psychiatry conducted test on casual (less frequent) and hardcore (frequent) players, and came to the conclusion that hardcore players had larger reward centers within the left ventral striatum than those who played games less frequently. Researchers also noted that even when players failed in a game, they still experienced stimulation.

Researchers at the Charité University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Berlin, Germany, found that gamers who play "frequently" have greater left striatal gray matter volume compared with those that are considered to be moderate gamers. Researchers say that these findings show the importance of "striatal volume and activity in shaping preference of skills for video gaming."

Yesterday we mentioned that the North Carolina Appeals Court would hear oral arguments about two different cases related to video-style sweepstakes games in the state. Today we know a bit more about what each side argued yesterday before the three-judge panel hearing both cases. The cases relate to an Internet sweepstakes ban that took effect last December and followed an earlier state ban on traditional video poker machines.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments today on two lawsuits related to casino-style video games. This comes after two different trial court judges gave different answers last year to the legality of a 2010 law approved by the North Carolina General Assembly. The mixed message delivered by the courts is confusing everyone - from law enforcement to business owners who want to offer their customers access to the machines.

The South Korean Game Rating Board (GRB) has accused several MMO publishers of obstructing an investigation related to in-game "jackpot items," according to a report in This Is Game. The GRB wants to know from game makers if the in-game purchase of jackpot items should be considered gambling. The Jackpot item system lets players pay a set amount of in-game currency in return for a random item of potentially greater value.

Online gambling for real money is illegal, but a loophole manipulated to great effect by a new company called Playhem makes it perfectly legal. The trick being manipulated by the New York-based start-up is that it allows its users to place wagers on themselves as they compete against each other for cash or prizes.

The man accused of stealing $12 million worth of chips from Zynga Poker users has been sentenced to two years in a UK prison, according to eWeek Europe, and faces additional charges related to a 2008 hacking charge. 29-year-old Ashley Mitchell was sentenced for hacking into Zynga Poker servers and stealing billions in chips valued at around $12 million. He then took the virtual currency and tried to sell it on eBay at deep discounts. He managed to unload about a third of the chips for $85,700 before authorities caught up with him.

People don't seem to know what they want when it comes to gambling. According to two separate polls from Rasmussen, people loathe gambling if it is online, but love it if it is on terra firma. One poll published on August 10th asked people if they had ever gambled online and what they thought of online gambling in general, while another poll conducted on August 9 asked respondents if they approved or disapproved of gambling locally. The results are pretty surprising if you put the responses from both together. It seems that gambling is no longer a moral issue in America..

Australian Senator—and fervent anti-gambling crusader—Nick Xenophon (pictured) is turning his attention to arcade games that feature gambling elements, saying that such entertainment is a “training ground” for children to learn how to gamble.

Xenophon, who previously took on mobile and PC games based on slot machines (or pokies as they are called Down Under), was joined in his latest contention by Charles Livingstone, a Monash University “electronic gaming expert,” who told the Age that such arcade games achieved a pair of purposes: “to indoctrinate kids to gambling, to make them think this is a normal part of life; and to lure children, and with them their parents, into the pokie venues.”