Having gone to considerable trouble and legal expense to get state acceptance of its intention to operate an international real-money poker site branded Pokertribe from tribal lands (see previous reports), the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and its commercial partner Universal Entertainment Group appear to be experiencing practical difficulty in getting the project off the ground.
The project was originally scheduled to go live in August this year, but that was pushed out to October, and this week the tribe announced that the 2016-17 winter is the new target date. An associated project aimed at making gambling available on airline flights has similarly been postponed to the summer of 2017.
In the meantime the tribe will continue to offer free-play action, presumably to keep the brand alive.
The tribe and its penny-stock partner Universal Entertainment has proffered various excuses for the slow progress, the main one being international liaison delays associated with licensing, but there is wide speculation that meaningful licensing arrangements remain out of reach for the venture.
Universal Entertainment presumably knows this, having lead a previous and similar tribal venture to an unsuccessful conclusion and the loss of almost $10 million (see previous reports) in the past.