The poker bill to legalize online poker in California has been shelved for the rest of 2014. On Wednesday, Lou Correa, who was responsible for introducing the SB 1366 bill, made the decision to withdraw his online poker bill, citing that there wasn’t enough time to allow for the Indian casino tribes to come to an agreement in order to get the bill passed so that online poker regulation in California could take place.
Senator Correa said “Internet poker is an important public policy. We need to make sure it’s done right.”
This is definitely seen as a major setback for online poker in California. The Golden State is the largest US state still not to regulate online poker and other casino games even though the issue of internet gaming regulation has been debated for several years now in the state legislature.
One of the major issues that has been a point of difference in the California online poker debate among the key decision makers is the proposal to prevent online poker operators that were servicing the California online poker market prior to regulation.
Ever since PokerStars partnered with the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and several other California-based card rooms, the Indian tribe has rallied against the inclusion of “bad actor” clauses in the bill. But back in June of 2014, thirteen Indian tribes had reached a consensus on language in one of the online poker bills that would prevent sites like PokerStars from entering the California market.
Another issue of debate has been whether or not to allow horse racing tracks to participate in online poker. The current proposal would prevent race tracks from offering online poker as it’s in the best interests of the tribes and poker rooms in the state to limit competition.
Even though some progress has been made on the issue, I. Nelson Rose, a leading expert on gambling law, wasn’t surprised that online poker wasn’t legalized this year in California. Rose said “The politics of this aren’t right for this to get rushed through by the end of this year,” basically alluding to the fact that there are so many tribes and it makes it difficult for all of them to come to an agreement, especially when they all have different views of how the online poker framework in California should be set up.
A second online poker bill that would allow online poker in California was introduced earlier in the year by Reginald Jones-Sawyer Sr. but it has also failed to progress through the committee process in the State Assembly and no hearing date has been set for the time being.
Lou Correa’s term as a member of the California State Senate is coming to an end at the end of 2014, so he will not have the responsibility of revising and introducing online poker bills but he still thinks that California will have legalized real money online poker it’s just a question of when not if it will actually happen.
With the withdrawal of Correa’s online poker bill and no apparent progress on the second poker bill in California, it seems pretty likely that online poker will not be addressed in the state of California until next year much to the despair of poker players that reside in the Golden State.
With so many parties that have a vested interest in the push to have legalized online poker in the state, an agreement could still be some time away. Of course, the situation hasn’t been helped by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s anti-gambling campaign that is fighting proposals to legalize Internet gambling in California.