Last week in an op-ed Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians tribal Chairman Bo Mazzetti made the casino for moving forward as soon as possible with legalization of iPoker in California because consumers who continue to play poker at illegal offshore websites are unprotected from fraud.
In his piece for the San Diego Union-Tribune Mazzetti noted that these sites do not pay taxes and lack any kind of consumer protection.
“Currently, the proceeds from I-poker are going to illegal foreign online operators for whom it is difficult to confirm if the stated odds are accurate, who is operating the online site and how the profits are being used,” he wrote. “There is little or no legal recourse for fraud or identity theft in today’s unregulated games.”
Mazzetti, whose tribe owns Harrah’s Southern California Resort, and is a major player in current discussions on the legislature on legalizing online poker, wrote “California needs enforcement mechanisms that ensure I-poker games are regulated as rigorously as other federal and state gaming, and that there are sufficient resources for enforcement by establishing an enforcement fund. Someone has to pay for enforcement and social costs. It shouldn’t be the taxpayers. A mechanism for tracking winnings for taxation and other purposes is also needed. In addition, there must be a formula for sharing profits with the state’s taxpayers.”
He also calls for tight auditing procedures to ensure that the software provides fair and honest games, and safeguards to ensure that minors and non-California residents have no access to the games.
“The technology already exists,” he writes, “If these real practices work in England, France and Italy, where online gambling is legal, and when used by non-gaming organizations such as Major League Baseball, CBS and Apple, they will work in the state of California.”
Meanwhile PokerStars, who would like to be one of the providers of online poker in the Golden State, hosted a hands-on poker demonstration in the state capitol on May 21.
The first ever such demonstration was designed to give California lawmakers an idea of how online poker works. Two highly visible professional poker players, Jason Somerville and Daniel Negreanu, hosted it.
It came one day after a joint Senate/Assembly information meeting that was held online poker and in tandem with the Capitol Weekly California Gaming Conference.
The joint meeting was entitled: “The Legality of Internet Poker—How Prepared is California to Regulate It?”
Negreanu has been speaking to media outlets of late calling on more states to legalize online poker. Speaking to a New Jersey reporter in April, he declared, “If the states aren’t going to get on board and work together for interstate gambling, it won’t work.”
The Pechanga/Agua Caliente group continues to press for legislation that doesn’t include the state’s racetracks. However, other heavy hitters continue to remain opposed to the participation of PokerStars through the inclusion of a “bad actor,” provision that would exclude the company, which ran afoul of the U.S. Justice Department several years ago for allegedly violating U.S. law by allowing U.S. residents to play on its offshore websites.
On July 8 what many consider to be a make or break meeting, the Assembly’s governmental organization (GO) committee will convene to discuss Gatto’s AB 9 and Jones-Sawyer’s AB 167, considered to be the two most viable online poker bills.
The legislature will go into summer recess on July 17. The last day for any bill to be passed in September 11.
