Michigan Senate Committee Approves Online Poker BillLegislation Would Legalize House-Banked Games As Well |
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There is still a ways to go before becoming legal, but Michigan’s consideration of online casinos took a big step forward Wednesday when a Senate committee approved a piece of legislation on the table.
The Regulatory Reform Committee signed off on the plan by a vote of 8-1. According to the Poker Players Alliance, a grassroots lobbying group on Capitol Hill, the bill moves to the Senate floor for a possible vote. There isn’t currently a companion online casino bill in the Michigan House.
Card Player’s request for comment from the bill’s primary backer on the future of legislation wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.
The current legislative session ends this month, so if online poker has real momentum in Michigan it will likely been seen in the coming weeks. State Sen. Mike Kowall, the sponsor of the online casino bill, is the Senate Majority Floor Leader.
The legislation calls for a $100,000 application fee and a $5 million fee for an Internet gaming license. A license fee would be an advance payment of Internet wagering taxes. The proposed tax rate is 10 percent.
Only casinos in Michigan, commercial and tribal, could be online gaming operators.
Michigan has about two dozen tribal gaming facilities, plus Detroit’s three commercial casinos. Detroit casinos won $1.37 billion from gamblers in 2015, which was only about $40 million more than 2014 and still less than was collected each year from 2010-2012.
Additionally, the bill would create the Division of Internet Gaming in the Michigan Gaming Control Board in order to oversee the new games.
Michigan has been taking a look at online casino games for the past three years. The state decided to go with the online lottery first, kicking off those games in 2014.
Amaya Gaming, owner of PokerStars, testified in support of the legislation at an early May hearing.
If Michigan legalizes online gaming this year, it would be the first state to do so since 2013. Other states seriously considering the games are California, New York and Pennsylvania.
Legalizing online casinos would be a historic development for Michigan’s gaming industry. Pari-mutuel horse racing was legalized there in 1933. Nearly four decades later the lottery was allowed, and then in the 1980s tribal gaming began to expand rapidly in the state. It wasn’t until the late 1990s before casinos in Detroit were given the OK.
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