California Discusses Potential Intrastate Poker BillMorongo Band Tries to Convince Others to Join Intrastate Effort |
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In some ways, it’s California vs. the United States when it comes to the fight to regulate online poker.
Robert Martin, the tribal chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, spoke on behalf of his tribe and a consortium of casinos that are trying to convince other Native American groups to support a bill that would explicitly legalize and regulate the online poker industry in California.
“You saw what (the Internet) did to the newspaper industry, the record industry. We don’t want that to happen to us,” Martin told other tribes at the Western Indian Gaming Conference last week, urging them to adopt Morongo’s position to regulate online gaming.
The Morongo Band has teamed up with a number of popular California casinos, including Commerce, Hollywood Park, Hawaiian Gardens, and The Bicycle Club, in its efforts to regulate online poker in an intrastate manner in the state.
Poker advocates may remember Martin for his testimony at Rep. Barney Frank’s poker hearing last month. The tribal chairman was the only person on the Congressional panel who officially opposed Frank’s legislation to regulate the industry at the federal level.
“We rushed to Congress to beat back a bill that would have restricted our participation,” Martin said. “Steps had to be taken to protect financial interests against erosion from offshore companies and Las Vegas corporations.”
It’s unclear how much support the consortium was able to build at the conference. No tribe publicly spoke out against the notion of intrastate online gaming, but the presence of media may have quieted public opposition.
In the past, Native American tribes have been hesitant to agree to online gaming for fear of the negative repercussions it could have in terms of revenue for its current land-based casinos, as well as issues concerning exclusivity and compact protections.
So far, no legislator has signed on to author the bill, but a California Senate committee is planning on holding a hearing on the issue in February.
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