Thursday, July 24, 2008

California on the road to decriminalization

The reels of progress, to riff on a cliché, spin slowly; California’s online poker players have reason to be optimistic, though, provided they have the patience to wait out the sausage-making legislative grind.

Relief for the Golden State’s poker jonesers comes in the form of state bill no. AB2026 and now known as The California Gambling Control/Intrastate Online Poker Legalization Act, a bill which originally called for studies into the economics of intrastate online gambling and such.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the California Senate Appropriations Committee: After being reshaped with the state’s Senate Governmental Organization Committee, the bill formerly calling for a study has mutated into a bill that “requires the California Gambling Control Commission, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, to perform a study and report its findings to the Legislature by June 30, 2009, regarding authorizing intrastate Internet poker, pursuant to the federal Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.”

Under terms of the proposed law, what LCD’ll call the California Online Poker Act, or COP, an intrastate system would be created (gee, can the Great Poker Firewall of California be far ahead?) which would allow Californians to pay the great game 100% legally ... and the state to rake quite a bit in taxes. COP contends that such a system would be possible even with UIGEA in place because the bill steers clear of violating four federal laws upon which UIGEA is based: Interstate Horseracing Act; the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act; the Gambling Devices Transportation Act, and the Indian Gambling Regulatory Act.

Said the bill’s sponsor, California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys): “This is an attempt to do what the federal government allows – provide people who want to play in California at least the opportunity to play internet poker in a way that they can be certain is safe and regulated."

After getting through the Senate Governmental Organization Committee on a 6-to-1 vote, the bill heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee in August in the hopes that regulations for the establishment of intrastate online poker are implemented by July 1, 2009.

The only hurdle now could be opposition from tribal gaming interests. The citizen sponsors of the group are Poker Voters of America (self-promoted as “free Americans joining together to fight for their right to play the all-American game of poker!”), and Poker Voters of America president Jim Tabilio, in response to the possibility of Native American opposition to AB2026, stated that "If they're not going to play, it's not going to happen. We want the tribes to be able to play."