California Senate leader co-sponsors Internet gambling bill

[kowboys4]

the first thing that pops out to me is the 30 million liscencing fee. That is a lot of money for a poker site in California. You better be damn sure your going to make 30 million if you are going to try and open one up.

[kowboys4]

Also as far as the chances of this bill passing. I don't pretend to know but here are the factors that would be included in that.

The Senate majority leader is a Dem and they hold majorities in both houses and the governorship. These are not super majorities though so keep in mind that a few dems going the other way could make this a no. BUT even if that rare case were the actual case the reps got boned in redistricting and Dems will have super majorities in both the senate and house most likely next year.

Another bigger factor going for this is that California has had a huge budget shortfall for a while and they keep cutting education. Its widely accepted that voters have had enough of this and say more taxes rather then cutting education at this point. That kind of mindset will make this a very popular thing for legislators to get passed so that the budget shortfall will narrow without doing either of these things.

[:::grimReaper:::]

Questions (sorry if they're answered):

1) When will this be voted on and how long until it's officially passed?

2) IIRC provisional licenses will be given. How long would it take to draft a provisional license?

3) How long would it take to attain a provisional license after legislation is passed, and therefore deal the first hand?

[tamiller866]

Originally Posted by spacegod

Yes, you're missing the point. The point is that I can make anything illegal to raise revenue or protect in-state industry and call it whatever I want, presumably under the guise to protect the children or w/e bull**** they want to dream up.

"Recent studies show MMORPGs are extremely addictive and an adverse health risk for children and teens. To protect California children from these games, you must acquire a license to provide online interactive gaming services to CA residents."



It seems really close to the out-of-state winery issue that went to the Supreme Court imo.

It's very close, and the winery case itself came down to a one vote ruling, but in that case the States didn't block all unlicensed wine distributors, they blocked all out of State businesses from shipping directly to customers with no burden on intrastate shipments.

Those laws were depending on the 21st Amendment giving states authority over alcohol imports, but the instate distributors were allowed to import wine and distribute directly to consumers, making the laws discriminatory rather than regulatory.

Those wine blocking laws would have been redundant had their been a federal law in place blocking unlicensed distributors from accepting direct payments, but since the UIGEA requires a State law violation as a trigger they made unlicensed offering/play a crime.

Since the law would apply equally to an unlicensed instate gambling cafe, an offshore poker site or an unlicensed CA tribal poker site, it should be ruled non-discriminatory.

I doubt they intend to enforce the law against players, but because laws which don't extend to play have been ruled inapplicable extra-territorially (in cases involving State v Tribe), making unlicensed play a crime was probably necessary.

[TheEngineer]

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

^^^ Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?

No one.

Spoiler:

Grant's tomb is a mausoleum. Sorry for the derail

[TheDarkElf]

Originally Posted by TheEngineer

No one.

Spoiler:

Grant's tomb is a mausoleum. Sorry for the derail

Right. It's a trick question. But it seemed appropriate given all the trick questions in an earlier post.

[RU18LOL]

when will we find out if its passed or not?

[Do it Right]

Originally Posted by kowboys4

the first thing that pops out to me is the 30 million liscencing fee. That is a lot of money for a poker site in California. You better be damn sure your going to make 30 million if you are going to try and open one up.

You're overestimating how large the current unregulated sites, that have revenues in the billions, actually are. http://www.pokerscout.com/ lists the number of average ring game players online at Stars as 25,800. But a person 50 tabling counts as 50 players by their count. If the average player is playing 4 tables, which is probably on the low end given how many 10-24 tablers there are, that's an average of just 6,450 ring game players online.

Looking at a region restricted, pokerscout lists Svenska Spel as having an average of 940 players. That is likely fairly close to the actual amount of players given the lack of many multitablers on that site. California has more than 4x the population of Sweden, the country Svenska Spel is restricted to.

Even if there are numerous sites they will all be making well in excess of 30mm, especially during the initial 'boom' period.

[PokerXanadu]

Originally Posted by :::grimReaper:::

Questions (sorry if they're answered):

1) When will this be voted on and how long until it's officially passed?

2) IIRC provisional licenses will be given. How long would it take to draft a provisional license?

3) How long would it take to attain a provisional license after legislation is passed, and therefore deal the first hand?

1. The bill has to go through the normal legislative process of committee hearings and votes, floor votes and governor's signature. How quickly it proceeds will be at the discretion of the CA Congressional leaders. The new fiscal year for CA starts on July 1, so my guess is that the bill sponsors intend to get this bill through in the next 3 or 4 months.

2. Theoretically, immediately upon the bill becoming law. But they'll probably do some regulation and forms development first, plus the casinos/cardrooms/horsetracks/OTBs have to work out their alliances and deals with the site providers get their paperwork done to submit an application. I'd put this at late 4th quarter 2012 or 1st quarter 2013.

3. Obtaining a provisional license and dealing the first hand won't be simultaneous. Once the provisional license is granted (see #2), the site then has to build their system inside the state of CA, get it tested, inspected and approved by the state. This may take a few months more. First live hands dealt: late 2nd quarter 2013, imo (assuming passage of the bill this spring).

EDIT: Just noticed that I missed this provision in the bill:

b) All initial licenses issued pursuant to this chapter shall take effect on the same date, as determined by the department, but not later than January 1, 2014.

So my guesstimate of first cards in the air late 2nd quarter 2013 is probably right.

Originally Posted by kowboys4

the first thing that pops out to me is the 30 million liscencing fee. That is a lot of money for a poker site in California. You better be damn sure your going to make 30 million if you are going to try and open one up.

The $30M is not a licensing fee. It is an advance payment against the first three years of the 10% site revenue taxes.

But yes, this is a hefty sum to invest in advance. On the other hand, if CA were an independent nation, it would be the eighth largest economy in the world. I think the poker sites/networks will be falling over themselves in their scramble to get a CA license (as suppliers to the CA casinos/cardrooms/horsetracks/OTBs), as it will be their best foothold into the new US regulated i-poker market.

[Micro McD]

"Should this bill not pass, it could be reintroduced as a standard bill but would not go into effect until January 1, 2013 should it pass." http://www.legalpokersites.com/blog/...ll-introduced/

We do have some outs to legislation passed in 2012 as a back up incase nonsense happens.

[PokerXanadu]

Originally Posted by Micro McD

"Should this bill not pass, it could be reintroduced as a standard bill but would not go into effect until January 1, 2013 should it pass." http://www.legalpokersites.com/blog/...ll-introduced/

We do have some outs to legislation passed in 2012 as a back up incase nonsense happens.

This article is a very good synopsis of the bill provisions. Note though that it has one error: the $30M advance payment by sites is against the first three years of the 10% site revenue tax, not against the full ten years of the duration of the site license.

[dmyers1166]

Got to laugh at this ..

Players would be able to set up deposit limits and loss limits. There is no specific set time for self imposed limits. Every six hours a player would be presented with a pop up screen that would tell the player how long that they have been playing and how much they have won or lost.

For those of us that block results, can we opt out at least for a monthly total. Can we adjust this for rakeback? .. Ok back to the important discussions, but results oriented thing in this Law.

[ScreaminAsian]

^^ plz someone lobby to include "rake paid" in that popup screen

you know, to protect consumers from being taken advantage of by greedy online poker rooms.

is that not a priority?

[PokerXanadu]

Originally Posted by dmyers1166

Got to laugh at this ..

For those of us that block results, can we opt out at least for a monthly total. Can we adjust this for rakeback? .. Ok back to the important discussions, but results oriented thing in this Law.

Actually, that statement isn't totally accurate. Here is what the bill actually says:

(b) During play, in order to assist a registered player to decide
whether to suspend play, the registered player’s screen shall do
all of the following:
(1) Indicate how long the player has been playing.
(2) Indicate the net change in value to a registered player’s
account since the time of last logging in.
(3) At least once every six hours require the registered player
to confirm that the player has read the message or give an option
to the player to end the session or return to the game.

[DeNutza]

So if Ca. pools with other states, this could get very interesting.

Winner pays rake, so I guess if the winner takes down a pot in California, he would pay X rake...If the winner is in NV, he'd pay Y rake.

In split pot games this could really stand out...One could pay a $2 rake in one state, and just $1 in another.

This is gonna open a whole new can of worms.