New Jersey gambling regulators have granted conditional approval for California’s Pala Band of Mission Indians to operate an online gambling website through a partnership with Borgatain Atlantic City. The agreement will make Pala the first Indian tribe to offer i-gaming in the state.

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The Tribe will begin operations in the coming weeks under Pala Interactive, a venture it created last year, and will be eligible for final approval after six months. Pala’s offering will be licensed under the umbrella of Borgata, which has already snagged the biggest share of New Jersey’s online poker market through its existing affiliation with bwin.party.

The Atlantic City casino currently offers table games through BorgataCasino.com and shares its Borgata Pokerliquidity with PartyPoker. It’s unclear if Pala’s forthcoming online card room will share liquidity with its casino partner or if it will create an entirely separate network.

Pala Interactive CEO Jim Ryan (pictured) was almost certainly instrumental in connecting the two gaming companies. Ryan previously headed bwin.party and undoubtedly used his connections to forge Pala’s current alliance with Borgata.

But, it is Ryan’s connection to the infamous online poker site Ultimate Bet that has raised eyebrows in the poker community. Ryan was tapped to head up UB’s parent company, Excapsa, while it went public on the London Stock Exchange. He was also present during the time that UB founder Russ Hamilton allegedly pilfered tens of millions of dollars from poker players with software that allowed him to see his opponents’ hole cards.

Ryan himself was never implicated in the cheating, but some questioned how he could not have realized it was happening due to his position in the company. The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, however, is notoriously strict, and with Pala’s approval, is seemingly okay with Ryan’s past.

Also of interest is Pala’s relationship with poker legend Phil Ivey(pictured), whom it tapped to become the company’s spokesman last year. The 10-time bracelet winner is no longer on good terms with Borgata, which claims that Ivey used edge-sorting in order to cheat the casino out of millions of dollars at the baccarat tables. Rumors have it that the 38-year-old and Pala have quietly parted ways, but the company has yet to release a statement confirming any split.

Pala’s foray into the New Jersey market is clearly a dry run for the possible legalization of online poker in its home state of California. The powerful tribe has lobbied hard for legislation that would regulate the industry there. It is also one of the tribes that has pushed for the inclusion of “bad actor” language, which would exclude sites that continued to operate in the state after the UIGEA was passed.

While online poker bills have yet to gain traction in California’s legislature, many analysts believe that the state’s gambling interests will iron out their differences and pass some form of the legislation in 2015. If Pala Interactive can get set up and become fully licensed in New Jersey before that happens, they’ll be in a prime position to open up shop quickly in the Golden State and take advantage of that potentially huge market.

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