On Tuesday the New York Senate Finance Committee passed Sen. John Bonacic’s online poker bill, S 3898. The committee passed by a voice vote without debate or discussion. The bill now advances to the full Senate for consideration. Two Senate committees passed the proposal this year. The Senate Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee Bonacic chairs unanimously approved the bill back in February. The Senate’s budget also included online poker before the New York Assembly stripped it out. New York’s online poker’s chances have been tough to handicap over the past two years. Last year, supporters of legal online poker were…

California Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer told Online Poker Report that his bill to legalize and regulate online poker will not be moving this year. However, he will continue to work on the issue in an effort to repair the trust between gambling interests and legislators that disintegrated at the end of last session. In an interview at his district office in Los Angeles, Jones-Sawyer described 2016 as a year to heal, take a step back and regroup without the possibility of a bill going forward raising tensions. “Obviously, we’re not going to put anything across the desk now,” Jones-Sawyer said. “If…

At present, playing legal online poker on a regulated New Jersey site can be a frustrating ordeal. Games do not run round the clock, tournament guarantees are on the low side (and dipping), and low-to-mid stakes No Limit Hold’em games dominate cash game lobbies. But with online poker at the forefront of the legislative conversation in both New York and Pennsylvania, that could change in relatively swift fashion. Admittedly, there are still a lot of pieces that need to fall into place. But should NY/PA pull the trigger, then a liquidity sharing compact between NJ and its neighbors to the…

Just like last year, it appears a bid to legalize New York online poker via the state budget is not in the cards. But that does not mean online poker legislation is dead for 2017. The Senate had included online poker in its version of the state budget. But it had not appeared in the Assembly version. Just last week, Assemblymember J. Gary Pretlow told Online Poker Report that online poker was not likely to make the cut in the final joint legislative budget. Online poker faced the same dynamic last year, as the Senate included online poker in its…

New York’s fight to legalize online poker likely won’t face its true make-or-break test until June, according to poker’s prime mover in the state Assembly. New York’s state Senate included online poker language in its budget proposal last week, but the Assembly opted not to include poker in its spending plan. According to Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, the exclusion was due to unidentified powerful figures in the Assembly who remain on the fence regarding online poker’s merits. Pretlow, who introduced an online poker bill in the Assembly in February and who later claimed he didn’t see “too much opposition” to passing…

Online poker legislation has become a perennial event in California, with efforts stretching back some 10 years. Despite a decade of debate, the state still seems far away from getting a bill across the finish line. But that doesn’t mean lawmakers won’t try. California Assemblymember Reginald Jones-Sawyer introduced the state’s latest online poker legislative effort, the Internet Poker Consumer Protection Act, which seeks to legalize and regulate online poker in the Golden State. Jones-Sawyer’s bill (AB 1677) would allow approved tribes and card rooms to offer online poker to anyone over the age of 21 located in the state of…