Home / Poker News February 2013 / Online Poker Legalized in Nevada
Online Poker Legalized in Nevada
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2013-02-23 09:33
It is now official: online poker has been legalized in Nevada as Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the long-hyped interstate online poker bill into law the other day. Not only has the bill made online poker legal within the borders of the state, it also allows Nevada to expand its potential player base by entering into compacts with other states. There was certain urgency about how the bill was signed by the Governor: the State Legislature met on Thursday morning to discuss the issue and less than 12 hours later, the still hot document was already under Sandoval’s pen.
The Judiciary Committee accepted the amended version of the bill, passing it on Thursday and sending it in front of the Senate and the State Assembly, which passed it on just as quickly. Indeed, Nevada’s move was spurred on by the fact that New Jersey and Delaware are currently considering similar
online poker bills, and the Silver State obviously aims to retain its top poker destination status in the nation.
According to Sandoval, the move was a historic one indeed, as it will allow the state of Nevada to lead the way into the future of gaming, by becoming a standard for gaming regulation and by finally breaking the taboo of online gaming. The bill has set in motion quite a rush among operators who intend to offer real money online poker to the masses. The only problem that’s likely to pester operators for the foreseeable future in Nevada is a liquidity-related one: given that it’s 35th in population in the country, the Silver State isn’t likely to be able to yield large masses of online poker players from the get go.
Licensing fee hikes proposed last year by William Horne, Assembly Majority Leader, have been dropped in the final version of the bill.
