On Friday, the final day bills could be filed with the California Office of Legislative Counsel, two online poker bills were introduced into the California legislature. Both were written with the goal of seeing intrastate online poker legalized and regulated this year.
The first (for no other reason other than the fact I chose it first) is Assembly Bill 2291, written by California Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer and backed by a number of Native American tribes, including the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Barona Band of Mission Indians, the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians, the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, the Sycuan Band of Kumeyaay Indians, the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, and the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.
AB 2291 would limit online poker, as one would expect, to customers within the borders of California. What may come as a surprise to many, though, is that this bill is extremely protectionist. The crafters of AB 2291 have no desire to share liquidity with anyone else outside of California and want to control their online poker industry themselves. Should the federal government enact national online poker regulations, the bill requires California to opt-out of (or not opt-into, depending on how the federal legislation would work) “any federal Internet gambling regime.” AB 2291 also forbids any sort of interstate gaming compacts akin to the one just signed by the governors of Nevada and Delaware, as well as international compacts.
The bill is for poker only and sets initial licenses at ten years. Licensees must pay a one-time fee of $5 million, which will be credited against quarterly revenue-based fees. Eligible operators would be card rooms and California tribes.
Another interesting aspect of the bill is that cash game rake would not be the standard percentage-of-pot rake in cash games like we see at all poker rooms around the internet. Instead, as is the case in the state’s poker rooms, the online operators will be able to assess a “per hand charge” that can vary based on the stakes of the game. Tournament entry fees are allowed, as usual.
In a letter written to tribal leaders and posted on Pechanga.net, supporters of the bill explained that AB 2291 is similar to a bill that introduced last year, except that, “…this version intentionally leaves open controversial sections, like the so-called bad actor provisions and the number of sites per license. We did so as a demonstration of our commitment to continuing our good-faith efforts to reach tribal consensus through dialogue.”
The other bill, Senate Bill 1366 (The Internet Poker Consumer Protection Act of 2014), was introduced by State Senator Lou Correa. It is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as SB 678 that Correa introduced last year. That bill, as well as all other poker bills in California before it, never made any progress in the legislature. At the outset of the bill’s language, Correa explains his desire for regulation, saying:
The state and the governments of numerous federally recognized California Indian tribes cunently maintain and implement substantial regulatory and law enforcement is to protect thousands of Californians who play, among other things, real-money poker in, respectively, licensed California cardrooms and authorized tribal government casinos, yet the state provides no licensing requirements, regulatory strncture, or law enforcement efforts to protect Californians who play the same games online on an illegal and unregulated basis for money. The Legislature finds that protection of the interests of both the state and persons within its jurisdiction that play real-money games online requires the authorization and establishment of a system for regulating Internet poker gambling within California.
Unlike AB 2291, Correa’s bill would allow for interstate poker compacts. It would require all of the usual protections that we are used to seeing in other bills, such as technologies to prevent access by minors, to curtail illegal activities, and to detect and prevent problem gambling.
Both bills are labeled as urgency statutes, meaning they require affirmative votes by two-thirds of the combined legislature and would take effect immediately if passed.