Despite the fact that there are no current regulations on the state’s law books, Phil Ivey (pictured) has taken a new step in his poker career by signing on to be the face of a proposed online poker operation in the state of California.

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On Tuesday, the Pala Band of Mission Indians announced that it would partner with Ivey and another notable poker industry insider, former bwin.party Chief Executive Officer Jim Ryan, to create Pala Interactive. The new company will provide online poker to residents of the Golden State using Realtime Edge Software, which provided the base for such online poker entities as ClubWPT. Ivey will serve as the brand ambassador, while Ryan is expected to take up the same position he held with bwin.party.

The move by Ivey is in no way related to his other endeavors in the online poker arena. IveyPoker, which was created as a poker training site earlier this year, immediately made a splash by signing several top pros. Earlier this month, IveyPoker introduced a Facebook free-to-play online poker site that intermingles some of the training information into its operation.

The move by Ryan(pictured) to team up with Pala Interactive comes on the heels of his departure from bwin.party, which he was CEO of until January of this year. Along with his co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger, Ryan led the publicly traded company since the merger of Party Gaming and bwin Interactive in 2008. It was his leadership of another company prior to that, however, that has drawn some concern from many in the poker community.

Ryan’s involvement as the CEO of the now-defunct Ultimate Bethas brought questions as to the trustworthiness of his leadership. Ryan was at the helm of the company during its superuser scandal in which people (most notably former Main Event Champion Russ Hamilton) were alleged to have used a special program that allowed them to see opponents’ hole cards.

In recordings releasedby Ultimate Bet whistleblower Travis Makar in May of this year, Ryan is one of the people mentioned in a discussion on how the company would handle the scandal, including how or who to refund almost $22 million to. Makar alleged that Ryan was aware of the cheating on the site and intimate in the subsequent decisions made regarding the scandal.

Ivey and Ryan’s involvement in the California tribal gaming outlet has drawn some concerns from potential players. One person wrote, “I will never play at any site run by any crooks associated with AP/UB/Old FTP and will advise everyone I know to steer clear as well.” Despite that, Ivey has seemingly come through the Full Tilt Poker scandal without much damage.

While the creation of Pala Interactive for online gaming purposes is a significant step, there are still no laws in California to legalize and regulate the industry. There have been a slew of proposed bills in the California General Assembly to allow for online poker, but bickering among the powerful Indian casino operations, California card rooms, and horse racing tracks around the state has derailed those efforts in the past. Although there is new legislation in the works in Sacramento, there has been little movement toward its passage.

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