The California dream for real-money online and mobile poker fans may become a reality in the New Year… that is, the next New Year.
According to freshly published reports this week, state legislators in the Golden State are more poised now than ever to act on the lucrative potential that awaits a regulated online gambling market in California, the nation’s most populous state.
With Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware carving a clear path for California to follow, some simply say “it won’t be long now.” And the monetary success California would likely achieve on an annual could be greater than those other three markets combined.
“I don’t have any doubt we’ll have legal online poker in California,” Whittier Law School Professor I. Nelson Rose, a specialist in gambling law, tells SFGate. “Only politics is preventing it.”
By politics he primarily means Indian tribes that wield immense influence in Sacramento and are said to believe most legal online gambling could reduce the number of people playing in casinos. He notes the state already allows remote online betting on horse races.
“The tribes have done a tremendous job of using the wealth generated from gaming to gain political power,” Rose says in the same report.
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