Legalized Online Poker in New York May Have to Wait until 2018

The end of June is coming soon to an end and poker players are waiting to see if the New York Assembly will legalize online poker.  The bill to legalize online poker has the full support of the Senate but it still needs to get pass the Assembly.

NY Online poker bill may be shelved until 2018Last week, a vote was expected on the bill but it never took place.  The end of the month of June is kind of a deadline to see if the bill will move forward this year since the session ends in June.  Even though the chances of the bill passing are considered slim according to New York Assembly member J. Gary Pretlow, he still has high hopes that it will pass.

At the moment, what is holding up the bill is that “they have some issues that may not be resolved by the middle of next week,” Pretlow said. “I’ve heard they have some constitutional issues and disagreements over the penalties. Some people say we don’t have strong enough penalties for bad actor, while some people say the penalties are too strong.”

The New York Senate which approves of the bill because it would bring more tax revenues believe that this time around, it has a chance of passing because the revenue would go towards the lottery education fund.

According to several gambling software companies that offer casino games like poker and blackjack, the Assembly is having second thought on passing the Assembly Bill A5250 which would legalize online poker.

The reason behind it may be because of the “bad-actor language section of the bill which targets online operators which would complicate matters for PokerStars and any other online casino operators that did not leave the US market after the UIGEA passage back in 2006.

The main argument for that section of the ill is that some believe that the penalties are too strong while others believe that they are not strong enough.

Some of the highlights of the Online Poker Bill would be that players will have to be physically in the state of New York and be 21 years of age to play online poker.  In addition, online gaming operators would have to pay a licensing fee of $10 million and be taxed 15% on their gross gaming revenue.

This will be the second attempt to legalize online gambling in New York this year.  The first one was A 5250 which would make poker a game of skill rather than luck by Asemblyman Gary Pretlow and S 3898 for online poker by Senator John Bonacic.

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