Sometimes karma can bite you in the butt.

World Series of Poker Executive Director Ty Stewart [recently] experienced that pain.

Recently, Stewart made light of early troubles that befell Ultimate Poker, the first legal pay-to-play online gambling website in the U.S., which launched April 30.

First, Ultimate was caught using an unlicensed and much maligned service provider to identify new players. Then, a glitch in the website caused two 9 of spades to appear on the flop in a game of hold’em.

“I think the market is ready for a first-class product,” Stewart told Case Keefer of the Las Vegas Sun while touting the World Series of Poker’s planned Nevada-based pay-to-play website.

Last week, the World Series of Poker suffered its own glitch. The unlicensed website briefly went live, letting players gain access to the pay-to-play area.

Caesars Interactive Entertainment, which owns the World Series of Poker, caught the mistake, shut down the site, and notified Nevada gaming regulators.

The laughter you’re hearing emanates from the corporate headquarters of Station Casinos, majority owner of Ultimate Gaming, which operates Ultimate Poker.

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The first-ever legal pay-to-play online poker website in the United States is expected to launch this morning when Station Casinos-owned Ultimate Poker flips the switch on a new era in Nevada gaming.

The site, UltimatePoker.com, can be accessed only on computers or mobile devices located in Nevada.

State gaming authorities signed off of the company’s technology last week and allowed Ultimate Poker to move forward in what is considered a test period.

Ultimate Poker was licensed for interactive gaming in October.

The site is expected to go live at 9 a.m. with limit and no-limit Texas hold ’em poker through single-table cash games, sit-and-go events, and multi-table tournaments.

The poker games will have buy-ins from a few cents to $100.

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Station Casinos-owned Ultimate Poker, which has yet to launch its pay-to-play website in Nevada, has a brand ambassador.

The company, which has been licensed by state gaming regulators but is waiting for approval of its technology by testing laboratories, announced Tuesday that it has signed poker champion Antonio Esfandiari to promote the website.

Esfandiari has made a name for himself behind the microphone as a commentator for ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker and at the tables for his victories on the World Poker Tour.

He made his biggest splash last summer when he won a record poker jackpot of $18.3 million in capturing the World Series of Poker’s $1 million buy-in “Big One for One Drop” at the Rio.

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Station Casinos LLC posted its third consecutive profitable quarter on Tuesday. The locals gaming company’s bottom line continued to benefit from its aggressive marketing efforts, despite a competitive Las Vegas market and a sluggish economic recovery.

The privately held company also announced it will acquire a 50.1 percent ownership stake in Fertitta Interactive LLC, which operates Ultimate Gaming. Fertitta Interactive launched Ultimate Gaming’s free-play site on Facebook earlier this year, with a real money site expected to launch in Nevada by June 30.

Marc Falcone, executive vice president and chief financial officer with Station Casinos, declined to disclose the purchase price. He expected the all-cash deal for Fertitta Interactive to close by the end of the month.

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What seemed like a tremendous decision for the gaming industry nine months ago – the re-evaluation of the Federal Wire Act of 1961 – may not be so advantageous for Nevada unless Congress takes steps to enact Internet poker legislation.

A window of opportunity that could place Nevada at the center of the potential U.S. Internet gaming market is closing quickly, and some in the gaming industry worry that lack of federal action could cost the state tax revenues and casino customers, while making Nevada subservient to less-regulated states.

“There are different standards for gaming regulation in one state versus another,” Station Casinos Vice Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta said. “We know some companies will shop for the lowest common denominator. We could start seeing bets being taken away from Nevada.”

The U.S. Department of Justice on Dec. 23 reversed a 50-year-old interpretation of the Wire Act, saying the law covers only sports wagering. Legal experts said the decision frees individual states to let online operators offer poker and traditional casino games such as slot machines and blackjack if the play doesn’t cross state lines.

It’s been estimated that U.S. gamblers spent as much as $26 billion annually gambling online before federal prosecutors indicted the operators of three of the largest Internet poker websites in April 2011. Closing those sites, which had violated federal law by accepting wagers from the U.S., effectively walled Americans off from the online gaming universe.

Now, states dealing with tight budgets are looking at that huge, untapped Internet market and are increasingly open to allowing – and taxing – it. Lawmakers in several states are in various stages of adopting regulations to allow full-scale online gaming.

Several Nevada gaming companies are on the verge of offering in-state online poker, but they foresee trouble ahead if their market is limited only to players in the sparsely populated Silver State.

And not only are they concerned about missing out on poker profits, they fear gamblers who can play online at home won’t bother traveling to Las Vegas’s tourist-dependent resorts.

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