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…

PokerStars has become the first online gambling operator to obtain a live games licence in the Czech Republic. The Amaya-owned company is expected to utilise the licence to launch a website in the country within the next few days, with Czech-based players able to access services via PokerStars.cz. Punters in the country will be able to access PokerStars’ established online poker games, as well as various internet casino titles such as blackjack and roulette. Online gaming has been legal in the Czech Republic since 2009, but legislation had restricted the market to domestic operators only. More at iGaming Business