not gonna happen. the tribes will never let stars in and stars/commerce etc wont let the tribes kick em out.

AB 167 is the second bill introduced this year. It is the one from the pro Stars camp. It also lets the horse racing crud in, and as such, is unlikely to pass in its current form. The other bill is AB9. That one comes from the con Stars camp, and has a bad actors clause.

AFAIS, the two camps are no closer this year than last. The only thing 2015 has going for it is that it is a non election year.

I Understand they dont want to allow ROW on their sites because they intend to tax every dollar. But don't they tax tons more from the pokersites if it has all these ROW players on it?

I guess the player would get taxed at the point of cashout, in which case it would mean that Americans money would be going offshore to be cashed out by nitty Russians ect

They could tax the rake like some European countries do.

From what I've read about the bill, they do tax the rake (8.5%). But California can't tax the rake if ROW is included.

Also, I don't believe there are specific provisions in the bill for taxing players cash outs. I doubt it would be part of the cash out process. But obviously there would be a clear record of your wins/losses, so you would want to include these in your year end incomes.

They can tax the rake contributed by American players. Pretty sure that's how it works in the UK and Belgium.

I believe other regulated countries like Belgium, Denmark, France, etc. are isolated from ROW, but I'm not entirely sure of the level of isolation.

France, Italy and Spain are separate. The other countries that tax winnings still let players play in the global player pool.

So will you need to have US citizenship to play or could you play while visiting? If i were to live there for 3~months but on a tourist visa.

Taxes might have something to do with it, but pooling with ROW is far more complicated than just working out taxes.

How about cheating? If a U.S. resident cheats on a U.S. regulated site, they are subject to law enforcement. Is this true in all the ROW? We can't just demand that China, for example, turn over their poker cheats, can we? Is the Chinese government going to do anything? I doubt it.

How high are you man? lol. California will be just fine. The State might be $broke but its not toxic & definitely not a paradise. A paradise should be affordable & my rent says otherwise.

They can setup the regulations however they want but I'd be shocked if citizenship were required. Why would they want to exclude you and your tax dollars? However you'd need an address in the state, possibly a US bank account and obviously you'd need to be present in the state.

I'm not aware of any online gambling site that requires citizenship. Stars, Party, iPoker, all the sportsbooks, they all just require you to be in a country they allow players from. Your citizenship is irrelevant.

I dont think ull need any of that.

When u want to play on WSOP.Com in vegas only requirement is that u be in the state. I dont live in the state, dont have an address registered in the state. I just signed up, verified my location with my phone, and started playing.

As a native and lifelong Californian I've grown accustomed to having a "I'll believe it when I see it" approach to politics in the State.

However, I can't help be feel cautiously optimistic for a California-Only PokerStars. I would be near the front of the line to rejoin Stars, this would make me happy and return some level of online-poker income to my life.

For the State of California, when I do my taxes at the start of 2016 (assuming they got up and running in the 2015 year for hypothetical purposes) I would be required to report my income/loss on PokerStars and all income would be appropriately taxed.

This is a MUST DO for a desperately broke state, with a poor credit rating, who constantly aspire to bigger and more expensive statewide projects (high speed train, anyone?).

Here's to hoping that I'll be playing on PokerStars.ca.us before the end of 2015.

According to the bill, you need a Social Security number.

Regulated poker in the US is going to be different then the rest of the world. That doesn't mean better, and it doesn't mean worse. Just different.

Analogy to ROW is silly.

There is no chance of going live this year. If this bill passes this year, it will likely be 18 months from enactment to the go live date. Early 2017 is probably the earliest.

Not allowing non US citizens would disqualify a pretty big part of Cali residents so hopefully you just have to prove residence in Cali for some period of time. Could look to some other intrastate poker legislation to see if citizenship is a requirement.

I currently grind .com in Mexico. Cash game are pretty sweet in LA area and with Stars' software and marketing .cali could be huge. If mexico doesnt boot stars out of here soon could be a pretty sweet situation going to Mex for XCOOP series and random weekends and grinding live and .cali the rest of the time.

Please let this happen.

We can only hope that Pokerstars's entry in the US market whether it's NJ or CA is a sign of positive change in the industry!

One F'ing Time!

California would be the last state to ever join a national network. Just take a look at the history of Powerball. CA was the last state to join of existing states with lotteries.

Simply put California doesn't need anybody else and would rather not share their tax revenue.

Where do you think they are going to look for guidance on the regulations? Maybe to countries and states who have already successfully regulated it?

Oh no, I guess they will try to re-invent the wheel. Because different.

I'd rather have all the US fish to ourselves instead of.sharing with Russians and poor Euro countries. All it will do it make games nitty and harder.

I'm well aware of Black Friday, UIGEA, and the documentary. In fact I've watched it many times. IIRC and I could be wrong, but was there specific language in UIGEA that prevented international financial transactions which would be required for an international player pool interfacing w/ the states. Or was UIGEA just vague enough to be interpreted as such.

And if so, I'm guessing repealing UIGEA/amending UIGEA is what would be needed to have an international player pool combined w/ US pools.