California tribes continue online gambling push

[The Buzz]

With Harry Reid and New Jersey hogging all the online gambling headlines, you forget that it was California who dominated news coverage earlier this year. State Senator Roderick Wright announced he would be drafting legislation that would license and regulate online poker in the state back in May. That legislation was delayed, but some tribes have not given up hope.

From The Press Enterprise:

The Morongo Band of Mission Indians near Banning and the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians near San Bernardino are the leading members of a new group of tribes and card clubs called the California Online Poker Association. It is the sponsor of the bill introduced Monday, the first day of the 2011-12 session.

The measure would put a "licensed entity" that already has a casino or card club in California in charge of an "intrastate Internet poker website." In return, the entity would pay the state an unspecified share of the revenue.

Federal law prohibits online gambling, but increasingly popular websites based outside the U.S. attract an estimated 2 million California poker players who bet as much as $300 million annually, according to an estimate earlier this year.

States can license their own legal games; none has done so. In Congress, meanwhile, fast-evolving online gambling legislation championed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, could go to a vote before year's end.

[JoeAdams]

That's another good news for poker players in the US.