The Menendez bill licenses, regulates, and taxes online poker in the U.S. It levies a fee of 10% on deposits, payable by sites. Half of that goes directly to participating states.

The bill allows states to opt out of participating via a letter from the governor to the Treasury Secretary within 60 days of passage.

If the bill passes as written, how many states do you think will opt out?

I'm not sure any of us here could make a reasonable guess. I'm close to positive Utah would and think Hawaii and Washington are likely. Every other state IMO could go either way. If forced to pick a number that would opt-out I'd say something in the 10-15 state range.

Edit: to add that my guess is based on the eventual bill being one that is as player friendly as possible while still giving the states a way to opt out.

Based on what I read here in the forum I would put it between 8 & 12. I think alot of states will opt in because of the revenue it will generate. Its funny how morals go out the window when money is involved.

I voted 11-20. I think that about 15 would opt out, but most would take the money. The rest would try intrastate online poker which would fail because it would be taxed too high causing too high a rake. Eventually over 45 states would opt in, but almost all licensed sites would still locate offshore. Some sites would be US company foreign subsidiaries.

Unlicensed sites would still be popular because they would offer the lowest rake net of rakeback and promotions to attempt to compensate for their perceived lack of security. The 50% penalty would be the most ignored and breached law in the US Code.

I voted 3-10, under the current wording of the bill. I think the few states that have no regulated in-state gambling or have already put a law on the books that outlaws internet gambling will opt out, and perhaps a few more that outlaw skill games for money. The others won't take the option unless and until there is some action taken by the state legislature to require an opt out. Otherwise, the governors will leave the state in and take the revenues.

My answer would be much different if the Barney Frank bill were passed. In that case, I think a vast majority of states would opt out unless the wording of the bill were changed to require the governor to opt out only pursuant to state legislative action. The governors would opt out in order to sort out the question first of whether or not they have they authority to make the decision to participate in online gambling licensing for their state.

That's true for us as individuals, which is why I thought we should try a poll. This will enable us to combine our guesses, yielding an average that will have more value than any one individual's guess.

I suspected that's what you were thinking, thus my willingness to guess immediately after saying none of us knew.

I dont know, but Im very happy this topic was made because this is THE key question.

We (and by extension the PPA) need to be spending whatever resources it takes to study this because this is the key question to all current regulatory bills.

I think every number mentioned so far is way low because I dont think we have proven that poker isnt a competitor to existing local gambling revenue, but that's why we need to do some actual analysis on the issue.

Getting to an answer is hard and is going to be imperfect, but the PPA (as an extension of poker players) not conducting a rigorous analysis on this before supporting the Menendez bill would be akin to an oil company starting a new drilling project without a view on the future price of oil.

It's a tough ? to answer. It's easy to guess the few states that will likely opt-out (UTAH) but difficult to figure out any state that is a guarantee to opt-in. Not only will the states be under pressure from the FoF types but business interests in the state. States that have casinos the union's will complain that allowing online gambling will take jobs from these casinos, expect a fight from casino unions and non-casino unions. Also even states that only have lotto type games to fight, store owners yelling that because of "online gambling" less people will come into the store to buy tickets which means less coffee and snacks will be sold ect.

I can see a situation develop where around 40+ states opt-out depending on the opposition that develops. IF there is no major opposition from union and business groups then many more states will opt-in, IMO.

Way too many. Allowing the governor to decide is absolutely terrible policy. We would essentially be seeing governors opting out simply to cater to their base. Just look at the ******ation of governors trying to opt out of federal stimulus money because their voters are morons

I voted 21-30, I think a lot of outside interests will put huge pressure on governors to opt out.

Yeah I voted 31-40 but think it will be towards the lower end of that. Its really a guess though, I havent gone through all 50 states.

I'm not completely sure why but I voted 3-10 only based on the information I've seen on the forms and what my gut say from that.

If you are going to try to gather useful information you will need to account for the optimism or desired outcome reflected from this sample. Poll the FoF add the results and divide by 2?



D$D

That's why I suggest an outside view.

And you got your TE standard answers #1 & #2.

Why do you think 2p2 posters are overly optimistic or biasing it based on desire outcome? I see no evidence of that.

We've all been discussing this for a while now, so we're all educated on the language of the bill. I thought it would be interesting to see what we all think of it.

What does that even mean?

Me too, but extrapolating conclusions from a "wisdom of the crowds" type perspective is dangerous because its not an unbiased group

Bias doesnt have a positive or negative connotation in this case.

This is an Internet poll. No one would treat it as a formal study, of course. Rather, it's useful in putting a number on where the 2p2 PL community sees the issue at this time.

No, of course not, its interesting but the conclusion has very little utility IMO

my vote is 3-10 but im confident that if we get to that point, we would be able to lobby the states that refused and throw some money at them.

is this even a relevant question? i hope so, and im not up on the whole issue, but i haven't heard anything to indicate that ay menendez bill or barney frank bill or whatever.. is even close to vote, forget whether or not it/they will pass...

just as a poker player who reads these forums once in a while, i want to know if these bills are fairy tales or not? if not, when? what? where?

My time machine is the shop but when I get it back I'll let you know the exact date and time.