California Online Poker Hearing Set For April 27Assembly Committee To Discuss New Version Of Bill |
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On Wednesday, April 27, California will hold another online poker hearing in hopes of beginning the process of ending a political stalemate on the issue that has lasted years.
The hearing will be at 1:30 p.m. local time in Sacramento, and it will take place in the Assembly Committee on Governmental Organization. The online poker bill is classified as an “urgency” measure.
Audio of the hearing will be available here.
The chair of the committee, Assemblyman Adam Gray, is the sponsor of the legislation. An earlier version of his bill passed out of the committee last year, which was the first (and only) time ever that a California online poker bill advanced in the Golden State legislature. That was in April of last year. The bill was deemed dead by the fall without ever clearing the full Assembly.
This year’s legislation was introduced on Feb. 19.
The two main hurdles for California online poker have been the tribal gaming industry pushing back against the racetracks participating in online poker and some tribes opposing PokerStars being a player in the space. The latter point is the so-called “bad actor” provision.
PokerStars’ former owners were indicted by the federal government in 2011, and the company ended up settling without admitting to any wrongdoing whatsoever.
Gray’s new bill calls for up to $60 million to go to the racing industry in exchange for the tracks not being involved in a market potentially worth nearly $400 million. PokerStars, which was licensed in New Jersey last year, has been lobbying in Sacramento, but its efforts could be complicated by the former CEO of its parent company being charged with insider trading in Canada.
California is the nation’s no. 1 tribal casino gambling market with roughly $7.3 billion in gaming revenue in 2014. That’s about 25 percent of the nationwide tribal casino gambling market.
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