Got this email today:

To our loyal and cherished players:

We hope you have enjoyed the competition and state-of-the-art experience offered by CalShark.com, which has consistently provided players with the thrill of playing live poker on their personal computers. CalShark.com was launched by the California Online Poker Association (COPA) and dedicated to providing players with the highest-quality play-for-free experience available online. Our goal was to seamlessly transition CalShark.com to live, real-money play after online poker was legalized in California.

Unfortunately, despite more than three years of effort, the State Legislature has not acted on Internet poker legislation and COPA has decided to dissolve. As a result, CalShark.Com will be closing immediately. COPA and the staff at CalShark.com deeply appreciate your support, and we hope you enjoyed your time on our site. If the situation changes, we'll let you know. Meanwhile, we hope you will continue to encourage Calif. Senators Rod Wright and Darrell Steinberg to pass a bill that will allow California's trusted poker operators -- tribal governments and licensed card clubs -- to offer intrastate on-line poker in a way that protects the rights and interests of Californians who want to play poker on-line and also helps the State budget.
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Further reading:

California coalition for legalizing Internet poker dissolves

After two years of failed efforts to get the state of California to legalize Internet poker, a coalition of 46 card clubs and Indian casinos is disbanding in frustration.

Legalization bills were introduced this year and last but failed to make it out of committee, in part because of disagreement within the gambling industry over who should be given the state-sanctioned games or whether they would hurt brick-and-mortar casinos.

On Thursday, the California Online Poker Assn. said its governing board has voted to dissolve the organization. "The decision was based upon insufficient progress within the legislature toward the passage of an online poker bill," said Ryan Hightower, COPA's spokesperson.

Hightower said the group originally expected to operate for two years.

"COPA’s members continue to believe that the authorization of intrastate Internet poker would provide California with hundreds of millions in new state revenue, thousands of new jobs and vital protections for players,’’ Hightower said.

Sen. Roderick Wright (D-Inglewood), who introduced past poker bills, said the issue is not going away, even if COPA is folding. He called the group a ``grand experiment. You had former enemies trying to work together. People didn't have the same interests.''

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cali...dissolves.html

wow

Not a positive development.

Very positive actually

This means that California is unlikely to be purely intrastate. California will have (and will be one of the first) IPoker in the future. It just won't be shaped by COPA.

This is not new. COPA dissolved weeks ago. This was an inevitable consequence. And no, Internet poker in one of the country's largest states is not a "lost hope" just because a smattering of loosely organized tribes couldn't keep it together the first time around.

I remember the posters that said the UIGEA was good for poker because the government was never going to shut down the large poker sites...... because playing online poker was actually not illegal.

Federal regulation may be years away. I could see situation where Nevada is the only state with legit internet poker for several years. Not a positive thing for online poker. It's not dead in CA but I would not spin this as a positive...... because it is not.

The tribes may have more to lose here than the Californians. But I have nothing to back that up with, other than I thought it was an intriguing thing to post.