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…

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…

As we all know, California is the golden snitch that the United States online poker world wants to catch, but also as we all know, there has been attempt after attempt after attempt to get online poker legalized and regulated there, always to no avail. Would New York be an acceptable consolation prize? Well, perhaps not for Californians or poker players in most of the rest of the country, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt. According to GamblingCompliance, there will be another push to pass an online poker bill this year. There have been a number of false starts in getting…

The US state of New York is on track to generate more casino tax revenue than Nevada in the current year, according to a new report by the American Gaming Association (AGA). In 2015, New York collected $888.4 million (€803.2 million) in tax revenue, 2.8% more than in the previous year, while Nevada generated $889.1 million, 0.87% up on the previous year. However, according to the AGA, should trends continue, New York will overtake Nevada with this year’s figures and move into third place for collecting tax revenue from casinos within its borders. Pennsylvania is some way out in front,…