Another U.S.-based online poker room that claims to be legal in the USA is to open this month–and this one has the backing of a poker magazine.

Spade Club (www.spadeclub.com) is the brainchild of Barry Shulman of Las Vegas, owner and publisher of Card Player magazine.

Scheduled to officially open Monday, Spade Club avoids U.S. anti-Internet gambling laws by working off of a so-called “sweepstakes” model instead of a “gambling” model: Players pay a $20 monthly membership fee to play poker on the site, and can then win cash prizes.

According to the room, it will offer monthly tournaments with a $40,000 prize pool and $10,000 top prize, as well as weekly and daily tourneys of lesser amounts. =A0 In addition, players will be able to post personal profiles, chat with other players, collect badges for winning tournaments and earn cash for knocking out players with bounties on them.

The website also eventually plans to offer headlines from the world of poker, as well as tips from professional poker players.

“I can tell you, if we don’t have 100,000 registrations by the end of the year, I’m going to be shocked, dismayed and disappointed in my ability to give a projection,” Shulman said in an interview with a local newspaper, the Las Vegas Sun.

“But I’m looking for millions of players,” he said. “Rather than getting a reasonable rate of return over time, this is about hitting a home run.” =9D Shulman will have plenty of competition, though, as so-called “legal” online poker rooms like his are proliferating like rabbits.

Already up and running are U.S.-based online rooms claiming to be legal such as Triple Jack Poker, Thwart Poker, Duplicate Poker and Pure Play, among others.=A0

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)