http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/196...ne-poker-bill/

Bill is AB 2863. It's not online yet.

At this point it's understood that the bill is generally similar to the draft legislation floated last week. You can read that here, cliffs here.

Tax rate and license fee are left TBD, the $60mm revenue stream to racing is still in there.

In terms of the bill's prospects ... California is obviously tough. My thought is that the old approach was obviously at a stalemate, so any new approach is a positive. But until we start to see reactions to bill and how it evolves, hard to handicap.

Shorter version: Moves us closer, but we could still be a long way away.

Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians Chairman Bo Mazzetti issued the following statement after Assemblyman Adam Gray introduced Assembly Bill 2863.

“The Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians has worked and continue to work with the Legislature, Tribal leaders, cardrooms and other key stakeholders in passing meaningful Internet poker legislation. The introduction of Assembly Bill 2863 provides a vehicle for the passage of Internet poker.

“Through Assemblyman Gray’s hard work last year and continuing open and honest dialogue this year, the momentum behind Internet poker legislation builds.

“Paramount to any gaming legislation is the protection of children and the vulnerable; California job creation; revenue generation for state services, and consumer protection. AB 2863 expands upon all of these ideals.

“We support Assemblyman Gray’s efforts and look forward to getting this done in 2016.”

Text of the bill is now available:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/fa...01520160AB2863

lol wont get passed obviously cause GAAMBBOOOLL is teh badz.

The bill in general is very well written, but there are a few things I don't like:

This is meant to prohibit games that are player-banked (player acts as the banking dealer). But it could be interpreted to mean that no button position is allowed in any game. A minor point, but could be clarified.

This is specified as part of the required information for a player to register an account. This means that only U.S. citizens and residents will be allowed to create a player account. Foreigners visiting California won't be allowed.

This is fine as far as it goes, but there is no prohibition against the same player holding more than one account on the same poker network through different websites, or on preventing such a player from playing in the same games from different websites. It would probably be taken care of on the regulatory or site terms-of-use level, but it would be nice to cover it in the bill.

Self-exclusion: There is no accommodation for self-limits; only self-exclusion.

Player pools: player pooling between California sites is allowed, but player pooling with other states or foreign sites is not.

Felony: It will be a felony to play in California on any site other than those licensed in California. The state can seize any money, real property or personal property "used in, or derived from" such illegal play.

Transition period: It will be at least one year and nine months after passage before the first California sites go live. The felony provision above will be in effect during that time.

Player funds protection: The sites will be required to keep player funds segregated from operational funds, and deposited in California financial institutions. However, there are no provisions for protection of those funds. There is nothing in the bill which gives players first-lien on the funds in the case of site bankruptcy; recourse in the case of theft of those funds; etc. The funds will be segregated but not protected. Regulations could be developed to cover this, and other laws may be apply, but this bill itself provides no such protections.

Regarding the $60M/year paid to the horse tracks for not being included as eligible entities for licensing, I think it's fine. The bill simply specifies that of the first $60M in state revenues from Internet poker, 95% goes to the racing industry. That doesn't mean that it is $60M guaranteed every year or that rake has to be increased to cover it. It is simply specifying how the first $60M collected in a year by the state as it's percent of gaming revenue is allocated. If the state revenues are less than $60M from Internet poker, then the racing industry gets less.

If I were a CA resident, I might object to the racing industry getting the lion's share of the state revenues. But I don't see it as a provision that is detrimental to poker players or the poker economy. In fact, it will boost the racing industry, which will be good for the CA economy in many ways, the benefits of which is likely to spill over to the live cardrooms to some extent.

So playing on Bovada would be a felony? Even before these CA sites are up and running?

Smoking weed without a medical card is a misdemeanor, but playing poker online would be a felony. Makes sense.

No thanks

The year and nine months + a felony to play on any other site is pretty brutal. How similar is this to what the other states who now have online poker went through?

I don't understand why this bill doesn't allow player pooling with other states and/or countries.

Why are they so stupid? Do they not realize that they'll have far more revenue if the player pools are larger as more people will play due to larger guarantees and liquidity?

France, Italy, Portugal, and now the idiot Americans. Only the Brits are the smart ones.

Soon we'll be able to look back fondly to the days of WPN and Bovada

****ing sick but pry true

unofortunately yes, because it's like not paying a tax. Regulated gambling = Tax. In Italy we call it self imposed tax. Count of Cavouror called it "a tax on fools". it's pretty much like our govs see us, nothing canched from 1800.

I'd expect that regulated poker affected the legality of non-regulated sites in those states, but there's been nothing like this 21 month waiting period elsewhere.

The no SSN rule excludes what, 75% of everyone in the state of CA? So if $15 on Bovada gets you 20, can you at least choose between San Quentin or a sunnier less Norteño-centric location like Ironwood or they send you where they send you? Is there a limit to how much the local sheriff can steal because if there isn't, well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Donald_P._Scott. Bad incentives make bad cops and it isn't even close to a joke to say this could create problems if its left in.

Anyway I guess it sounds like a step forward...compared to North Korea.

Absolutely whats gonna happen. Make all the games crap so nobody wants to play anymore because they can only play games with players in their state. All these bills are gonna do is make US poker worse one state at a time.

First thing I noticed also, setting themselves up for fail.

Hope it fails exactly like the other half-dozen before it.

Yup.

If you like online poker in the states thats exactly what you want. These guys pushing for the government to "legislate" online poker sure arent helping USA players.

Yeah, I'm not convinced this state-by-state approach is actually working out to be a net positive for players, looking at the results. 21 months of hanging a felony over people's heads while poker isn't even offered.

By the time any reasonable series of interstate pacts are worked out to provide a decent player pool, there's probably a 50% chance the games will already be over-run by bots that can compete with top pros.

I think that regulation can be good and beneficial to players, but no regulation >> terrible regulation, as we've seen for the last 10 years. Bring back 2006 partypoker, i'mma win that monster tournament thing. (2016 partypoker can **** off though, whoever even owns it these days.)

But I guess if any state has a big enough population to attempt a sorta-almost-reasonable player pool, it's California. Guess we'll see in like 3 years.

cant remember exactly what title the guy holds in the state government or his name lol but he is very relevant and he put the chances on something getting done this year to be alot lower than even last year when he slashed the % by atleast half mid year. im with the rest of you tho, this current bill is absolutely awful for so many reasons

state = joke

Because the UIGEA's definition of "unlawful internet gambling" excludes wagers that are made entirely within one state. Interstate gambling is obvious interstate commerce and its regulation would obviously fall under the purview of the federal government and would not be something the states can touch. I think multi-state lotteries such as Powerball are structured to be in compliance with federal law, which is why if you buy a winning ticket in one state, you can't claim your prize in a different state.

Some of this bill is intended to comply with US law requiring age and location verification to avoid being classified as unlawful internet gambling.

No way this happens, main reason being Commerce. Can you imagine the shady ****s who own Commerce? I'm sure they have plenty of money in the right pockets to stop this from happening.

Huh? The regulated US marketplaces already pool interstate. It's legal.

As far as the bill, realize that nearly every iteration that's been floated in CA for the last few years has included the felony-for-play-on-unregulated-sites provision. That's likely not going anywhere; I forget what NJ had to say about this. But if this bill passes, Bovada probably pulls out of CA (I may be mistaken, but didn't Bovada pull out of NJ/DE/NV because of the existence of regulated online poker?)

I don't get the ban on interstate, though. Why bake such a hard and fast prohibition into the bill? If you don't want it, then just write the regs to make it require further authorization, but no good reason to make it an even more uphill climb right from the get-go. Guessing it has something to do with the contentious history of tribal gaming in CA, and how zealously the tribes guard the gaming exclusivity granted to them under IGRA. They fiercely contest any perceived infringement thereupon, and "interstate pooling" probably sounds to them like a slippery slope concept that might chip away at their quasi-monopoly (even though there's no reason it needs to.) CA big enough that it doesn't need interstate for sufficient liquidity, but sucks for other States who might have seen attaching to the CA pool as a guarantee of sufficient p2p market size.

In fact, the more I think about this bill's prohibition on interstate pooling, the more troubling it is for the future of online poker in the US. Everyone agrees that a federal bill is nowhere in sight. But there remained a glimmer of hope that State by State MIGHT work if there was a shared liquidity pool large enough that new States could plug into it and gain instant sustainability. California, with its 39M residents was the best candidate to serve as that hub. CA doesn't need interstate liquidity to be sustainable, but other States need CA. (For example, it's an open secret in NJ (9M residents) that all of the online poker sites are losing a ton of money - casino is what's propping up igaming there, and barely.) If CA slams its doors shut to other States, it's a huge blow to the viability of the State by State approach. A NJ(9M) + PA (13M) pact could serve as an alternative hub candidate. NY (20M) could factor in. Maybe IL (13M). But CA was the best candidate, both huge in size, and with the igaming debate being relatively far along (recent quagmire notwithstanding.)