A grass-roots organization seeking to pass legislation in Washington State to legalize online poker has acknowledged that the bill has died in committee and the issue is likely dead in the state for 2015.
A bill to allow online poker in the state was introduced in January by state Rep. Sherry Appleton, a Democrat, but it never received a hearing.
“The bill did not get the support that I had originally hoped for and consequently we will not be moving forward with it this session,” Appleton said in a press statement.
Appleton had introduced the bill in support of the grass-roots campaign known as the Washington Internet Poker Initiative. But the effort always seemed a long shot in the state, one of the few in the country to adopt a law specifically making playing online poker in the state illegal. That law was passed in 2006.
The state has 74 brick-and-mortar live poker rooms in Washington.
The state’s ban also extends to fantasy sports websites, though a bill to change fantasy sports classicization in the state to a “game of skill”—thus exempting it from the ban—is faring better in the state and recently had a public hearing.
Still there is strong opposition to allowing fantasy sports in the state.
