Meet Nevada iGaming's Border Patrol

Geolocation technology is the bedrock upon which the growing American online gambling market is built on.
After all, no state government wants to be accused of poaching illegal players from other states; and they certainly don’t want their own players slipping across the border to gamble with the next door neighbors’.
In Nevada, the company that’s keeping watching on the digital border is a San Francisco-based tech outfit called, Locaid. Locaid is currently providing geolocation services Ultimate Poker, William Hill, and Caesars’ WSOP.com.
In recent interview with VegasInc.com, Locaid CEO, Rip Gerber gave an illuminating look at this critical, but largely unknown, corner of the igaming world.
At its simplest, geolocation is all about pinging to devices as they attempt to log on a site and using clues from IP addresses, cell tower location and other sources. Some of their clients, like Caesars, add additional layers of verification to the process.
Gerber brushes off his new nickname, “The Sheriff of Online Gaming,” saying his job is really more like the border patrol. That’s because he only blocks unauthorized traffic from crossing an invisible, digital line, prosecuting illegal crossings is someone else’s job.
So far, Locaid hasn’t run into a lot of problems with hackers and out-of-state gamblers (or savvy gambling affiliates) who have workarounds to log into Nevada-based gambling apps. That said, Gerber acknowledges that black hat hackers are very skilled at getting past digital roadblocks and are likely beating the system.
Still, hackers only represent a small portion of the public and their methods aren’t, generally, available to the public at large.
Locaid is making a name for itself in Nevada and that goodwill is likely to carry across state lines as America embraces regulated online gambling.
Gerber and company are ready to roll with that growth and doesn’t see legal online gambling as a threat to land-based casinos saying, “As long as casinos provide an amazing experience and brand, and as long as they mean something to their community, this is going to be a major enhancement.”