If nothing else, you’ve got to give Hawaiian legislators points for effort. After seeing a similar bill fail last year, State Senators Donovan M. Dela Cruz, Gilbert Kahele, and Malama Solomon have introduced a new bill that would legalize gambling, including online poker. Hawaii is one of two states in the U.S. that has no legal gambling in any form (the other is Utah), though there have been around 150 attempts to change that in the past three decades.
Senate Bill 768 would, according to the 27-page document, “…create a body politic, known as the Hawaii internet lottery and gaming corporation, authorized to offer a regulated, secure, and responsible framework for the conduct of internet wagering and gaming in Hawaii…”
The bill is virtually identical to last year’s House Bill 2422, sponsored by Representatives Joseph Souki, Faye Hanohano and Angus McKelvey. Like HB 2422, the “corporation” created by this Senate version would “…provide consumer protections and capture additional revenues for the benefit of the State that are currently flowing offshore to unregulated internet gambling operations.”
If the bill passes and the corporation is formed, its governing board will have 180 days to ink its new rules and regulations for internet gambling. Within that same time frame, it will also be required to select a gaming provider with whom to partner. Those who offered online gaming to U.S. residents before September 20, 2011 will not be considered. That date is significant because that is when the U.S. Department of Justice altered its opinion on the Wire Act, allowing state governments to legalize and regulate internet gambling.
Interestingly, the bill would set the legal internet gambling age at just 18, rather than 21, as one might expect. Players will be required to be located within the borders of the state, but the bill does include language which leaves the window open for potential expansion:
At such time that a legally compliant mechanism is established to permit wagering by individuals physically located outside of the State, the corporation shall adopt rules to allow and govern wagering by those individuals.
The internet gambling corporation will be required to provide information on problem gambling for players, including a hotline they can call for assistance. Other responsible gambling services will include self-exclusion, loss limits, wager limits, time limits, and 24-hour deposit limits. If a player puts a deposit limit on his account, he can still increase it, but must furnish proper identification and wait 24-hours before his limits are actually increased.
Proceeds from internet gambling will go into a special fund in the state treasury where it will be allocated as follows:
35% – public school capital improvements
25% – University of Hawaii system capital improvements
10% – scholarships and educational loan repayments for medical students who commit to practice medicine in Hawaii for ten years after completion of their residency
10% – University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine family practice rural residency program
10% – watershed protection
5% – problem gambling reduction and prevention programs
5% – administration of the special fund
