Home / Poker News February 2012 / District of Columbia Online Poker Law Repealed
District of Columbia Online Poker Law Repealed
Posted by: James Carter. - Wed, 2012-02-08 12:27
These days, with the exception of Nevada, the cause of legal and regulated
on line poker seems to take two steps back for every forward step. The reasons are difficult to pinpoint, although the myriad of interests and interest groups involved is probably to blame for the legal quagmire more than anything else. Everyone would like to take some kind of advantage of the legalization of online gambling and poker, and everyone jostles for position while trying to block legal initiatives that would aid another party.
The other day, District of Columbia legislators voted against an online poker and gambling bill passed in 2010, effectively repealing the law and setting the stage for a lot more legal bickering to follow in the matter.
The Council of the District of Columbia cast a 10-2 vote in favor of repealing the said law, a week after the Finance and Revenue Committee voted to subject the bill to a full vote.
Council members who voted against the law made it clear that they weren’t against the legalization of online gambling and poker, but they were against pushing the bill through in its 2010 form. The bill, added to the 2010 budget bill by Concil member Michael Brown would’ve scrapped the city’s contract with Greek company Intralot, the corporate entity behind the city’s lottery. Intralot have apparently spent around $5 million getting ready for legal online gambling, before being locked out of the deal by the Brown bill.
Surprisingly enough, some council members argued that they hadn’t known what they were voting on back in 2010 when they passed the bill. According to Tommy Wells, the language of the bill had been quite ambiguous, using the term I-gambling instead of internet gambling.
The naysayers were reprimanded by council member Marion Barry (who also voted against the repeal), for claiming they didn’t know what they had cast their votes for.
