The curious case of California and Nevada.
Las Vegas would not exist if it weren't for Los Angeles, Ca. Carson City/Reno would be the major center in Nevada, mainly because it is on the major train lines between the Pacific (in San Francisco) and the rest of the country. But then the Hoover Dam was built with L.A. being the seriously major beneficiary, and then the mob creating gaming that Ca. had not legalized.
Post WWII, a symbiotic relationship developed where Las Vegas grew, and the weekend buses there were full (1950's-1970's). This was the real boomtime in Vegas.
California had lowball and draw during those years, but only in specialized clubs. I remember one between the San Fernando and Simi valleys, perched at the peak above Spawns Ranch, which Charlie Manson was soon to make famous. The others were in Hawthorne, sort of southwest L.A. and the Commerce Club, and Bicycle club. But they only offered California sanctioned
poker games.
Well the poker players in the (California) world wanted more so they packed them buses and drank their way to Vegas Weekends. Those buses were often free, paid for by the Casino's and from the stories I have heard, they were a blast.
So there is a basis for the co-operation between Ca, and Nv to work out a combined player pool for OLP. Thing is I think the B&M casino's in Vegas believe they can dictate the conditions for allowing Ca player to join, when in fact Ca should have the upper hand because we have the player pool that will make or break the Vegas OLP games.
We have a very well established Indian Gaming faction in Ca. I think perhaps that those Nv casino's fear them some. But the Ca Indian's, so far, have not announced anything significant regarding OLP.
Thing seems to boil down to Ca. having moralists, and NV having an ethic's based philosophy, (offering perhaps one of the better examples of the difference between morals and ethics). Moralists tend to want to guide the lifestyles of the populace, whereas ethics just says do whatever you do fairly.
But, the Ca. politicains can't get there butts off the ground and do anything. This is amazing considering the whole state is Democratic (mostly), who in general tend to be more ethical than moralistic.
Lets assume that 2 years from now, after the ship has sailed, those politicians finally wake up, and the Ca. Indians make a proposal for OLP and something happens. This would be after megabucks were spent by the Nv Casino's against anything Ca. might do. But, again assuming, Ca. 'legalizes' it for all existing Ca. Casino's. At that point, I would guess that Nv sites would welcome Ca. players but the state might decide to disallow it (except for all those megabucks that were spent on lobbyists and politicians), instead inviting Nv players to participate in Ca. games. They dick around for a few years, and finally decide that OLP firms from either state can compete with the combined player pool, which might be the biggest single player pool in the world by then.
In the end, the winners will be the ones with the best software.
After scrambling around for software, the winner will be the OLP site that has the software most like what we had pre BF. Which would be Stars or FT like in functionality, and ad free. It will not be subscription based.