PokerTribe.com free-play version launches, real-money launch coming Aug. 1

After a prolonged buildup, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma’s Pokertribe.com site has launched a free-play poker site, with real-money operations set to start in August.

Pokertribe.com currently displays a “play now” button to its homepage, along with a clock counting down the days, hours, minutes and (wait for it) seconds until Aug. 1, when the real-money option will reportedly commence.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Failin and a US federal judge have signed off on the Iowa Tribe’s plan to offer real-money online gambling to customers outside the state’s borders, similar to the deal Failin struck with a different state tribal group in 2013, before that tribe’s new leadership concluded the plan was really, really silly.

Pokertribe.com intends to cater to customers outside the US, who for some as yet unexplained reason will ignore the thousands of other online gambling sites currently at their disposal in order to wire money to a brand new site that looks as if it’s only accessible via the internet’s Wayback Machine, despite its claim of using “the most modern technology available.”