Flanked by hostesses in slinky black dresses and introduced with blaring rock music, a group of marketing experts and attorneys gathered at a Las Vegas casino to advise online poker operators how to promote a business that both the state and federal government consider to be illegal.

Several hundred people filled a giant ballroom at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center for a conference hosted by Bodog.com, one of the largest sports betting sites on the Internet that recently introduced an online poker room to capitalize on the poker boom.

The irony of the situation is not lost on Bodog.com Chief Executive Calvin Ayre.

"The progressive casinos ... acknowledge the industry for what it is," said Ayre, a Canadian whose site is based in Costa Rica. "We are a large feeder system for the casinos and Las Vegas is the center of this space."

It's no accident that the conference kicked off the day before the start of the championship event of the World Series of Poker, the world's largest poker tournament. By about noon today, 2,000 hopefuls will have faced off against one another in the so-called Super Bowl of poker at the Rio convention center.