Nevada Bill Proposes Intrastate Online Poker
With the issue of online poker seemingly dead at the federal level, attention immediately turned back to the rapidly-unfolding online poker industry in Nevada, which last year green-lighted regulated online poker and has already issued licenses to 17 operators, with 3 additional companies awaiting licensing approval.
The law that passed in 2012 stipulated that players must be physically located within the state of Nevada when they log onto an online poker room, however news has emerged that the Nevada Gaming Control Board has submitted draft legislation to the state legislature that would pave the way for the state to enter into agreements to accept players from outside the Silver State’s borders.
The new bill also would allow for the state’s governor to be granted the power to negotiate intrastate online gambling compacts, a point that Nevada Gaming Control Board chairman A.G. Burnett views as crucial to the dominance of the Nevada gambling industry as more and more states begin offering online poker games as a means of infusing cash into long-struggling state budgets.
“The need to make clear the governor’s ability, should he choose, to negotiate such agreements, was paramount. I don’t know if there are specific negotiations right now,” Burnett was quoted as saying.
As a handful of other states are moving toward offering online poker games to their residents, the proposed change in Nevada will permit a substantially broader market should the state successfully enter into compacts with other states offering regulated online poker. Nevada, with its long-established regulated gaming industry, has granted licenses to many big-name casinos and is looking to position itself to reap the rewards of legalized online wagering.
What states are Nevada likely to partner with?
Naturally many players have questions about just how agreements like these might operate, and what it will mean for the average player just wanting to log on easily and play a few hands. For residents of California, New Jersey, and Delaware, just to name a few states likely to soon be allowing regulated Internet poker, it means that they will most likely be able to play in Nevada-based online poker rooms sometime in the future should the bill pass the Nevada legislature.
If all goes according to schedule with software testing and licensing, online poker players in Nevada should be able to begin playing sometime this spring.
Is Nevada allowed to do this legally?
In the absence of federal regulation of online poker, many questions remain about the legality of such compacts. With regulated online poker still in its nascency at the state level, a lot remains to be seen from basics such as how the rooms will operate and from where the player pools will be drawn, to much larger legal issues like who should ultimately oversee and license game operators.
In addition to legal concerns, some gambling industry observers worry that a particular state’s gaming board could become overly powerful in a market consisting of a patchwork of states that lacks any federal oversight.
