Barton Online Poker Bill To Be Introduced By August, Will Likely Focus On Poker Only
Barton doesn’t have a hearing scheduled on the topic of legalizing online poker payment processing, but he’s “hopeful I'll be able to get that,” he said in a video posted late last month to the YouTube channel of online gaming data company GamblingCompliance (http://bit.ly/14O5QVV). Legislators are facing more pressure to act on online poker as states -- beginning with Nevada -- are passing their own laws to legalize intrastate online poker, Barton continued. “With the states acting and with some of the court rulings and the Justice Department ruling, time is on our side.” Barton was referring to a 2011 DOJ memo that online poker and lotteries are not prohibited by the Wire Act (WID Dec 28/11 p1). “It’s not a question of if my bill passes, as much as it is a question of when,” he said. Americans play online poker for money and “don’t have the safeguards they would have if my bill were law today,” he said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
The bill is “state friendly,” Barton said. Though all states would be included in the licensing system, “if you want to opt-out, it just takes a letter from the governor to opt-out,” he said. HR-2282, introduced by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., last month would establish a similar licensing system (WID June 7 p5). King’s bill would create an Office of Internet Gambling Oversight within the Treasury Department to oversee state agencies and tribal gaming commissions.
"It’s going to be a poker-only bill,” said John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, of Barton’s bill. “It will probably attempt to tighten the noose on other forms of Internet gambling,” such as online slot machines, he told us. If it’s limited to permitting online poker, “I think you're going to minimize the objections of tribes,” which have been split on the issue in the past, said Pappas. Most tribal gambling organizations are representing groups that profit mainly from slot machines and are unlikely to be threatened by competition that comes from online poker companies, he said. “The biggest issue is maintaining their sovereignty,” he said, calling it a “solvable” issue.
State lottery systems may oppose the bill, Pappas said. “In the past, they've been opposed to this type of legislation” if it puts creates a federal system and puts restrictions on what states can do on their own, he continued. “The devil is going to be in the details.”