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Online Poker Legalization
That plan is drawing rave reviews from the gambling community -- including Indian casino tribes -- and support from independent experts. Could Washington D.C. be far behind in embracing online poker?
"It's silly for the state not to get into the business," said Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa. "Billions of dollars are being spent on the game here, and the state isn't getting one penny."
California is the world's online poker capital, and the government is missing out by not legalizing, regulating and taxing it, experts said.
"Ultimately, California is going to legalize Internet poker," said Rose.
The new plan allows Indian casinos and other gambling venues to set up "revenue-sharing deals," which would serve as an incentive to wealthy tribes to gather voter signatures needed to put the measure on the February ballot across the state.
Backers must collect about 430,000 signatures by the end of the year to qualify the measure for the ballot.
Indians Interested
"We will take a look at the initiative and discuss it," said Garry South, a consultant to the California Tribal Business Alliance, a group of the tribes who own the largest casinos.Aides to Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who negotiated several gambling compacts with Indian tribes, declined to comment on the record, but said the proposed initiative would order the state to establish a state-owned Internet poker site within 150 days of the proposal's adoption, establishes game rules and restricts players to being at least 21 years old.
The draft measure says "the state may enter into revenue and player base sharing agreements with other states, localities and California federally recognized Indian tribes."
Howard Dickstein, an attorney representing several casino-operating tribes, said the operation such as the one outlined by the initiative would be "an extremely ambitious and complex project."
A small stream of money from "net revenues" from statewide gaming taxes will flow to cities and counties to fix local roads, said experts.
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