Legal Online Poker?

March 6, 2009

What if you were told that online poker could be legal in the United States even before the Unlawful internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, or the UIGEA, was overturned? Would you believe it? Or would you think that it was some sort of scam? Well, believe it because if California gets their way, poker playing will be legal online.

Legislators in the state of California have been talking about legalizing online gambling within their state, and now specifically legalizing online poker. In fact, they are looking to attend an upcoming iGaming conference to meet with operators that they might be interested in hiring to handle it for them. They are running a serious deficit in their economy right now, and they think that making online poker legal might help them out tremendously.

The state currently has the second highest foreclosure rate in the country and almost double digit unemployment, so anything they can do to help their economy would be considered and acted upon if found to be fruitful.

The state is not looking to team with one of the largest operators out there – PartyGaming, simply because of the “baggage” that they say would come with the group; mostly due to Anurag Dikshit and the fact that he just pled guilty to online gambling and will be paying the government a huge fine.

The state says that they are not interested in getting with a group that pled guilty before they were charged with anything. They want a group that will help out the state of California as cleanly as possible, and with very little drama.