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Written by Pino | Monday, July 5th, 2010
To address concerns raised by opponents, California Senator Rod Wright has temporarily withdrawn a bill he wrote which aims to legalize and regulate online gambling in California.
“This bill still needs a great deal of work,” said the Senator during a meeting of the California Senate Governmental Organization Committee where the bill was supposed to have been in line for a vote. “For every issue, there were people who liked it and people who hated it.”
Senator Wright has said that online gambling is here to stay and supports the idea that California should capitalize on the huge revenue potential of the online gaming industry. It’s estimated that more than one million Californians play online poker each week, and according to the research and analysis accompanied by the bill, legalizing online poker could generate more than $2.1 billion in California every year. With a $19 billion state deficit, the bill sounds like a good idea to bring in new revenues.
The bill, known as SB1485, is slated to authorize the State of California to contract with gambling operators, so that the gambling operators can legally offer online gambling to California residents age 21 and older. According to the bill, California would stand to gain at least 10% of the monthly profits taken in from legal online gambling.
Several tribal groups in California oppose the bill stating that it threatens the business of their federally authorized casinos. The California Nations Indian Gaming Association wrote a letter to Senator Wright expressing opposition to the bill for fear that legalization of online gambling in California would jeopardize jobs in communities where tribes are the largest employers.
Part of the regulation included in the bill is a clause which makes it a misdemeanor to visit unauthorized gambling websites in California. The nonprofit interest group, Poker Players’ Alliance expressed its formal opposing opinion of the bill stating, “Criminalizing harmless recreational conduct that typically takes place in the privacy of one’s home and cannot be practically enforced undermines public respect for all laws.”
Senator Wright agrees that the bill needs to be revised to consider the opposing arguments of the bill, but says that he will continue to push for the legalization of online gambling in California. “The world isn’t standing still while we figure out what to do,” he said recently. “The longer we wait, the more difficult it will become to get that business back to the state as different outlets of gambling become available and more entrenched.”
When the bill is re-introduced into consideration and should the bill be passed into law, California would become the first state in the US to legalize and regulate online gambling.
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