California Testing Online Gambling Waters

April 24, 2008

It seems that there is a bill in California to see if they should be looking into legalizing online gambling in the state. They would be searching specifically to see if a California-only online poker service would be legal, or if it came under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement act, or UIGEA.

The Committee on Governmental Organization has moved to approve the bill with a vote of 11-0, and now it will move onto the Committee on Appropriations. This then makes AB 2026 one step closer to having online gambling legal in California.

The bill was introduced by Assemblyman Lloyd Levin a couple of months ago, and although it does not make online gambling legal, it would give the opportunity for it to be researched for the state. This would not affect online gambling in other states, but if California chose to legalize online poker, it seems that online gambling throughout the US would be next.

They first have to find if there is a way to make online gambling legal for their state without violating federal laws to do so. With the UIGEA, states have the right to �legalize and regulate intrastate online gambling.� California wants to know if California residents could participate in Californian online gambling.

Levine says that the bill makes it seem that they can have online gambling within the state if their players and the online casinos are also located within the state. He simply wants to know if this is true or not.



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