California is slowly and steadily trying to pass legislation for the legalization of online gambling. But it remains to be seen if this effort will prove successful by 2015 as originally hoped.
So what’s behind the delay in California? According to Pokerupdate, “With the shelving of the Senate and the Assembly bills in California, the state’s online poker expansion status has changed from ‘clear frontrunner’ to the Facebook-esque ‘it’s complicated’ over the course of 2014.”
The five states that are in contention with California are, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Maryland. Of these five, Pennsylvania is the most likely to be the next state to legalized online gambling. According to the same report, “Pennsylvania is expected to legalize online gambling, but it will not be a fast process. Expect a vote to be reached sometime in 2015 with games to start in 2016.”
Massachusetts is another very good possibility as the next legalized state also. State Treasurer and a candidate for Governor, Steve Grossman has made it one of his goals to get online gambling passed if he is elected. Pokerupdate confirms that, “if Grossman wins the governorship, we could see a serious push to pass an online gambling bill in 2015”
So what of New York, West Virginia, and Maryland? Well they have all sparked interest in online gambling recently. The difference is they are just starting the procedure for legalization, but at the same time there is not much opposition against them either.
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