Sacramento Business Journal – State lawmakers have introduced competing legislation to legalize online poker. California has seen several attempts to legalize the game over the last five years, but the state’s powerful tribes opposed the legislation out of fear that online gaming would encroach on their brick-and-mortar casinos. The bills never made it out of committee.
But in a development that is similar to the anti-marijuana lobby’s can’t-beat-them-then-join-them attitude, the tribes are coming around, said one Capitol staffer. It isn’t difficult to sign up for online poker today — the U.S. has seen a proliferation of illegal digital gaming from offshore companies since the federal government outlawed the legal operations in 2006.
The chief difference between the two legalization bills is the proposed license fee that operators would pay the state of California. State Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, who has carried similar legislation twice before, is requesting a $10 million license fee with his Senate Bill 1366. That license fee is expected to inject hundreds of millions of dollars into state coffers following legalization.
In the Assembly, Reginald Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, has proposed Assembly Bill 2291, which proposes a $5 million fee. Both fee proposals are minor compared to the tens of millions that operators would need to pay in marketing on television and billboards, said the staffer.
