California Considers Move Towards Legalisation of Online Poker
April 28, 2009
With the huge legal battle surrounding the legalisation of online poker very much in full action it seems that the first state that is considering passing a legalisation bill is California.
Within the bill there was an report looking into the popularity of the pass time, revealing that billions of dollars was been spent on online poker websites but the sites were off shore and unregulated by the US government.
The state currently allows its patrons to play live poker tournaments within the state but has been holding off on allowing those players to do exactly the same while playing online.
This has raised questions about the government that is currently in place as many members of the public are seeing that as a ‘double standard’, allowing players to gamble at live tournaments but not allowing the online poker players to wager money.
The draft legal bill issues a statement that says:
It is in the best interest of the state and its citizens to authorize, implement and create a licensing and regulatory structure and system to allow licensed gambling establishments to operate government-regulated Internet poker wagering Web sites.
The bill pointed out that the state felt that is should allow online gambling but only if they could offer better online protection for its players with the aid of the ‘gambling establishments that function online’.
The bill would mean that existing gambling establishments that are already licenced by the state would be granted the licencing conditions allowing online gambling but new sites will not be granted a licence.
The Bureau of Gambling will be in charge of creating an agreement between the two parties, California State and Online poker rooms, that will remain within the guidelines that have been set out in the UIGEA that was created in 2006.
With this news becomng public, the state have also moved to say that the granting of the licences to such online gambling sites will spark new security measures with underage gambling been one of the main concerns.
We think that this a a positive move that is been considered by the Californian governement and hope to see this bill made offical sooner rather than later.
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