Home / Poker News April 2009 / Online poker on the path to regulation in California
Online poker on the path to regulation in California
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2009-04-26 17:28
Online poker could go through some major changes in the US in the near future. One of the states eyeing state-level regulations within the legal framework set by the UIGEA, is California.
The initiative started way back in February of 2008, when Assemblyman Lloyd Levine of Van Nuys, proposed a study aimed at the feasibility of online poker regulation while keeping within the legal framework established by the 2006 UIGEA.
Before it reached its present form, the bill now known as the California Online Poker Law Enforcement Compliance and Consumer Protection Act, has gone through several changes and amendments. The first such change was made by Lloyd Levine himself, after the Legislative Analyst’s office of California had approved his initial proposal. The original bill called for the feasibility study only, so its text was changed to address the actual implementation of legal and UIGEA-compliant online poker in California.
The proposal pretty much ran ashore when Levine’s Assemblyman’s term ended last year however other legislators seem to have taken his brainchild under their wings now. An updated draft version of the bill has been made public recently, one that includes five sections.
The first one of these sections deals with the study first proposed by Levine and its findings. According to this section, California’s citizens can now access over 2,300 online gambling and online poker websites, all belonging to operations based offshore. Although it is illegal to participate in games on such websites – according to the guidelines set forth by the UIGEA, nothing is actually being done to prevent Californians from accessing these sites. The second section of the bill is taken up by terminology definitions. The third section assigns the entities responsible for the elaboration of the regulatory measures.
The DOJ’s Bureau of Gambling Control and the state’s Gambling Control Commission provide the regulations, according to some guidelines also set forth in the third section. The fourth section appoints the CGC as the authority responsible with the proper functioning of online poker establishments, should the bill become a law. The fifth section is a standard disclaimer.
The UIGEA does offer states the possibility to regulate online gambling and poker within their boundaries as they see fit as long as they adhere to the general rules stipulated in the UIGEA. Through this bill, California would be the first state to exercise this option.
