PokerStars Praises New California Online Poker Bill
9 years ago
24 Jan
An online poker bill proposed earlier this week in California by Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer has met the approval of PokerStars and their fellow coalition members.
The bill, AB 167, is without a bad actor clause, which prompted the group that includes the Bicycle, Hawaiian Gardens and Commerce cardrooms, the Morongo and San Manuel tribes, and PokerStars' parent company Amaya Gaming to offer a statement in support of the measure.
We applaud Assembly Member Jones-Sawyer for his thoughtful approach to iPoker legislation in California which takes into account many years of input from stakeholders on all sides," the coalition stated. “It’s time to move on, and move forward."
AB 167 also includes the state's racetracks as potential licensees, which differs from a bill proposed in December by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (AB 9) that ignored horsemen, as well as containing specific bad actor language. Both bills are for consideration in the 2015 California legislative session and follow several years of proposals that failed to advance to the voting stage in the lawmaking process.
Entitled the Internet Poker Consumer Protection Act of 2015, AB 167 seeks to make it a felony for Californians to play at unregulated sites and for unlicensed gaming operators to offer services to those residents. License applicants would need to post a $10 million deposit toward a 8.5% tax rate, with licenses valid for four years and renewable.
"In place of previous attempts to use the legislative process to provide competitive advantages to a few operators, Assembly Member Jones-Sawyer’s bill brings parties with diverse interests together to move legislation forward," the PokerStars coalition statement said, adding that the group is "encouraged" that further discussions will be positive and head in a "hopefully more fruitful direction.”
The new ipoker bill, while favorable to tribes, cardrooms and racetracks, may also be favorable in one other aspect. Interstate partnerships are not excluded, which comes as delightful news to the other regulated states who still hold out hope that the nation's most populous state will one day become a part of the Multi State Internet Gaming Agreement.
Upon introducing his bill, Jones-Sawyer stated that discussions since last year with the gaming interests involved from when he first proposed ipoker legislation "has allowed us to reach even broader consensus and mutual agreement as to who will be able to participate in providing internet poker to our citizens."
Now if only his fellow lawmakers can also find a consensus to get the measure passed. AB 167 was filed as an urgent statute that requires two-thirds approval from both chambers in the California legislature.
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