Nevada and Delaware have entered into a soft launch phase of their agreement to share online poker player pools in order to bolster revenues, according to social media reports.

888Poker indicated in a financial report released Tuesday that this month would see the "successful deployment of [a] shared poker network across states of Delaware and Nevada...creating significant competitive edge for 888 and its operating partners."

The company is the back-end technology for online poker in Delaware (operated by three brick-and-mortar facilities), and is the WSOP's partner in Nevada. 888 also has plans to launch its own poker network in the Silver State with other brick-and-mortar partners.

Both states require online poker tech providers to have a casino partner.

Governors in both states signed an online poker deal in February 2014.

According to data from PokerScout, the Delaware Poker Network reached a peak of 313 cash game players during the first day of the liquidity sharing. Over the past week the network has averaged just seven players, which indicates a huge immediate increase in traffic.

It's probably more accurate to call it an explosion in Delaware traffic. The Delaware Poker Network had just $27,695 in online poker revenue in January 2015. It's likely that Delaware poker players benefit more than their counterparts in Nevada under the deal.

Under the deal, both states will keep revenue generated by players within their respective borders. Nevada's population is around 2.7 million; Delaware has about 920,000.

Last month, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said that shared liquidity should kick off in four to six weeks, according to a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He added that "technical glitches" were the reason why the partnership didn't become active sooner.

The Nevada-Delaware liquidity sharing came just a day before federal lawmakers were scheduled to hold a hearing to discuss banning online poker nationwide. The Restoration of America's Wire Act (RAWA) faces long odds of passing, however.

Nevada's other poker site, a product from South Point casino, is not part of the play pool sharing, as it isn't working with software from Gibraltar-based 888.

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