Want to legally place a bet on a sporting event within the U.S. state of Nevada? There’s an app for that. The Nevada Caming Commission has approved a smartphone application that would allow players to engage in sports betting using their mobile phones.

The app, designed by the Leroy Group, lets Nevada residents place sports bets on their Blackberry phone. Only the Blackberry app has been approved so far, with the Android app pending approval. The key roadblock to approval was the need to convince the Gaming Commission that the app’s technology was sufficient to verify that the person using the phone was actually physically located within the state of Nevada when placing the bet. That is important because sports betting is illegal in most U.S. states.

The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 makes it illegal to use a phone or “wire communication facility” to place an interstate or international bet on any sporting event or contest. That makes any online sports betting illegal if it crosses state lines, because that would make it subject to the federal “interstate” law. With the activity confined to Nevada’s borders, though, the federal Wire Act lacks jurisdiction in Nevada.

John English, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Public Affairs for American Wagering, who was involved with the project, is excited that the gambling app was approved. “The Nevada regulators placed significant challenges on American Wagering to provide a means of offering account wagering on a mobile device whereby we could verify that the bettor was in the state,” he said. He then triumphantly added that “we rose to the challenge and succeeded.”

Laws and regulations often build upon other laws and regulations. What starts as something small snowballs into something much larger, for better or worse. That being the case, allowing online gambling via a sports betting app may pave the way for Nevada to allow all forms of online sports betting and, eventually, all forms of online gambling. It may take some time, but government regulations rarely stay where they started. They tend to branch out and expand. Doing so in this case could help Nevada become the major online gambling hub for the United States.

Well, iPhone applications are causing a fuss again. This time isn’t not an app for shaking a baby or snorting cocaine, though. This time it’s about gambling.

Australian parliamentarian Nick Xenophon is outraged about poker iPhone apps that allow children to play the popular card game, betting fake money. He says the apps should be banned because they teach children to gamble at an early age and could lead to gambling addiction.

Citing concerns that it would get children used to the idea of playing poker for money, he said that “kids can become poker machine experts years before they are legally allowed to set eyes on a real machine.” In Australia, you must be at least 18 years of age to place a bet in any of their casinos.

The iPhone apps addressed by Xenophon are applications that have been endorsed by some of the big-name online casino companies. Though the games are free and you only gamble with play money, Xenophon worries that it could develop a pattern and teach kids that playing poker is a good way to make money. He said that the iPhone apps are “a training application for kids to lose real money when they turn eighteen.” Most of the apps do not have age restrictions.

Though he would like to ban them outright, Xenophon acknowledges that removing access to them in the country may not be possible. As a more realistic goal, he intends to push for legislation that would make it illegal to provide the iPhone gambling apps to children.