thanks

No, federal bills have nothing to do with state bills. What you want is a repeal or correct interpretation of the Wire Act that will allow player pools to be shared across states.

-BD

BREAKING: Multiple reports that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed the Michigan Lawful Internet Gaming Act, which effectively creates the legal framework for licensing of real money online poker games in the Great Lakes State.

Guess I'm moving. Congrats to the Michiganders.

Awesome news.

Does anyone know how this will affect current sites like acr? Will we still have those options or strictly the state regulated ones? Thanks

"Taxes on internet gambling would range between 20 and 28 percent, depending on how much money a casino generates from online gambling - that’s an increase from the original proposal, which would have phased in a tax rate over time ending between 8 and 23 percent after five years."

Can we play on pokerstars yet?

Sites like ACR have typically not continued to offer games to people in states that have legalized/regulated online poker. There also seems to be some URL blocking in at least some cases.

https://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-r...ors-signature/


Michael Gentile
@SpookyBugs
· Dec 11, 2019
Replying to @yanni_dc
Is it specifically prohibited or just not authorized?


John A Pappas
@yanni_dc
It is not prohibited. The final version of the bill does not explicitly authorize "multi-jurisdictional agreements" whereas earlier versions of the bill (i.e. House passed bill) does directly give this authority to the regulator.

Here is more of the language of the bill for shared licensing.

Poker Stars enters agreement with Michigan tribe. Nice start to 2020!

LINK

Can we speculate a timetable based on this news? I know that NJ took 2 years to deal its first online hand of poker, and I don't want to wait that long.

For online poker I'd speculate that Q4-2020 at the earliest, but launch will much more likely be in 2021.

They still have to form the Michigan Gaming Control Board, promulgate rules/regulations, and will probably focus on launching other verticals before online poker (like Pennsylvania did).

agree..virtually zero chance within 6 months..maybe 50/50 within a year..but certainly within 2 years..

Will they still be able to play on sites like BetOnline, Ignition, ACR, Global, etc in the meantime during this interim period? Or are they stuck in limbo where now that their state has regulated online poker, it means they aren't able to play on those U.S.-wide unregulated sites anymore, but also can't play online yet until the hands start being dealt?

Friend of mine worked on the bill and says it should be this year. Q4 probably most accurate.

PS has been working with the tribes all along and were just waiting for the ink.

CORRECTION: The Michigan Gaming Control Board has existed for years.

How has it panned out for other states that have legalized poker?
Do the sites have good games?
Or are they infiltrated with sharks/bots using Michigan VPNs, or even just bots located in MI.

Your best source of info on this is probably the 2 +2 "Internet Poker" sub-forum:

PokerStars PA Unofficial Thread
WSOP.com Nevada Unofficial Thread
PokerStars NJ Official Thread

Licensed/Regulated Michigan online poker games are months away from launching at the earliest.

I wonder if I've misunderstood this question, because it seems so odd. Is Michigan some kind of poker bot mecca? Regardless, no one here is going to know, because people playing secretly on other states' networks won't be revealing themselves.

Edit to add: Oh, wait, I guess you mean to ask if the other states have been infiltrated and thus whether Michigan will be. I'd check the threads that dhubermex suggested; I can't say as I can recall people complaining about the games being overrun, though.

Glad to hear another state passed online poker regulation, hopefully more are coming. Does anyone know if any bill like this happening in Missouri?

Nothing In Missouri afaik

Here's some U.S. online poker news today for more states to potentially license real money games.

The tweets are related to Kentucky and Nebraska (not Michigan), but it's very encouraging to see so much legislative movement/talk about U.S. online poker this early in the year.






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RE: Missouri I've been following St. Louis Post-Dispatch Gov't/Politics reporter Jack Suntrup.

Hmmmm... makes me kind of nervous whenever I see a new state putting state-level legislation in like this. If the people in their state can't play on the unregulated sites during the interim waiting period for 1.5-2 years or whatever it is while they wait for their state-regulated sites to pop up and start actually dealing hands, and online poker as an actual beatable venture for winning players is probably going to be more or less dead by 2 years from now at the rate the bots/RTA stuff, and solver-perfected players vs the rake ratio stuff is all converging at the rate it is going, then, I feel like I should almost be pretty bummed out any time a new state announces it is putting some regulation law into action, because all it would amount to is that many more Americans getting fenced off from playing on ACR/Ignition/BOL/Global for the next couple years during these last couple years that online poker is still a beatable thing, so that amount less of the (formerly) total 300 million American player pool still being able to play on there, percentage-wise, which is mildy to moderatebly bad for me and extremely bad for them, since their own income drops to zero for however long it takes for their new law thing to finally amount to playing hands on a regulated site, if they get barred from the unregulated sites during the meantime.

Unless: are they still able to play on the major U.S.-facing unregulated sites in the interim period? I asked that earlier but nobody answered. Seems like an extremely important question, considering how few years online poker seems to most likely have left in it before it becomes unbeatable.

If I thought online poker would still be a nice profitable thing for winning player 10, 15 whatever years down the road, I'd be really happy about more and more states putting in regulation legislation, and further down the road slowly combining the ring fenced pools until eventually we had full blown nation wide regulated poker. But, it sounds like this process is going to take so long, and online poker beatability is dying out so fast, that it's not going to even come close to winning the race, and is thus just going to mostly hamper things in the limited time we've got left.

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic though, I dunno.

Anyway, yea, I really want to know whether the people in these states will still be able to play on the major unregulated American-facing sites during their waiting periods while they wait for this stuff to take effect and regulated hands to eventually be dealt in their states.

Hi KatanaSoul,

From what I grasp (as someone who only covers the regulated/licensed market and has zero knowledge about the offshore stuff) this would depend on each state's regulatory enforcement framework, how each state defines "illegal gambling," and so forth.

Your questions may best be answered by (a) reaching out to the offshore sites you mention and/or their collaborators, (b) maintaining an open line of communication among players who patronize those sites so that you may better gauge what peers are saying about x-service, and (c) keeping a close eye out for related news in each statewide jurisdiction (as you've been doing).

On the separate topic of bots/prohibited software on regulated U.S. online poker sites... I believe some of your fears are warranted -- but that perhaps your timeline of "2 years" is off? More like 5-10 years? That would be more in-line with feedback from MPN administrator Alex Scott. See his recent appearance on the pokerfuse podcast. [55:00-59:52]

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...020-a-1760212/

Even as someone who has supported regulating/taxing U.S. online poker for more than a decade, I can sympathize with your points about how statewide regulations can very much be a mixed bag. They do incorporate themselves into frameworks that add legitimacy, formal supervision, and public accountability to lawful operations, but they also increase the "cost of doing business" for operators by rule -- which inevitably gets passed on to consumers because states often rely on taxable revenue from licensees to fund any number of law enforcement/emergency personnel/civic/social programs.

My prediction is that we will continue to see unique regulatory initiatives from each U.S. state that legalizes some form of online gambling. Cross-state compacting will definitely be the way to go for most states that come on board. However, the DOJ's new take on the Wire Act has pretty much ensured even more legal/infrastructure costs for the operators that are seeking statewide licensure. This inevitably results in friction between those who support "regulated" services and those who support "offshore" services.

https://titus.house.gov/press-releas...-online-gaming

"Though the full impact of this reckless DOJ reversal remains to be seen, we can be certain that it will inject uncertainty into a well-regulated market and push consumers back into the black market." Congresswoman Dina Titus (Nevada)

-David