Online poker legislation losing steam
Legislatures around the US are slowly turning away from favouring online poker and casino activity in the country.
US.- 2017 kicked off with several bills on online poker and casinos around various states with Pennsylvania and New York leading the way. However, following pressure by magnate Sheldon Adelson, new legislation seems to be less kind to online activities as it seemed to be a few months back.
In April, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed his intentions on reviewing the decision by the Department of Justice to limit the Wire Act to sports betting. As reported by Poker Update, there has been speculation around this recent interest after Sheldon Adelson was discovered to have donated US$5 million to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Some think that the casino executive is collecting a favor from the US government and that’s why Sessions wants to overturn the 2011 DOJ decision.
Starting 2017, Pennsylvania had two bills in the mix to legalise and regulate online games, one in each House of the Legislature. However, complications came with a Republican bill that wants to ban online gambling and another discussion around taxation on online activity: many operators have advanced that if its set to high, they won’t participate in the market.
A third issue entered the debate as a State Senator introduced that the state’s lottery shoud administer online gaming instead of land based casinos and added yet another hurdle to the matter.
Other states haven’t move forward either. New York plans to treat online poker as a standalone issue after failing to put it in the must-pass state budget. California saw a bill introduced earlier this year by Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer but he has confirmed that he won’t push it in 2017. In Michigan there were as many as four bills introduced in March but there has been concerns about online gambling’s constitutionality and tribal sovereignty that have slowed the issue down. Massachusetts, meanwhile, is waiting for the state’s special commision to complete a report on online gambling in order to progress -or not- with its legislation.
Other states have had little movement around online gambling regulation and experts think that states such as Washington, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Hawaii are not likely to move forward with it, despite showing interest in legislating on the matter.
