Online Poker Could Make A Comeback...

[robert_lamantia 0]

Calonlinepokernow.com has started a petition, and they're doing a big push to get California to legalize online poker THIS YEAR. It takes no time at all to sign it, so please do! With our help, we can FINALLY get online poker back!

[Cruz 2]

The California legislation is a disaster. The casinos represented by COPA wrote it to benefit the casinos not the poker players. It creates an Iron Curtain around California which is unlike other state bills being considered.The bill makes it an actual crime to play poker at any site outside of California. It actually puts a new crime in the books. They want to pass the Califonia legislation as an Urgency Measure which will immediately criminalize online poker for ALL California residents. No California site will be allowed to go online until 2014. That makes for a hell of a long blackout period.Once the bill is passed California will opt-out of any Federal legislation that might pass. So while we are sitting on our hands waiting for the California sites to come up, it is entirely possible that federal legislation is passed for which we will be permanently locked out. They are essentially in a race with the feds so they can block federal legislation in California.The bill ensures that there will be very few sites to compete with each other which will in all liklihood lead to a high rake and few promotions.Calonlinepokernow.com, the site that you mention is run by COPA. I suspect your post is a bit of spam and an attempt to get the victims of this bill to actually go out and support what is essentially a money grab by the casinos at the expense of the poker players. You really should have let the readers of this thread know that this petition is written by the casinos not the players.

[hank213 1,823]

On the website it says July 2013 start date but the bill states not later than January 2014. Here's a link to the bill if anyone cares to wade through it.In what I did scan through it does seem Cali would be closed to outside vendors and/or players as a liscensee must be domociled within in CA and all bank accounts for liscensee must be in CA. Which could prove disastrous if online gaming is opened up in the rest of the country or could prove to be a simple amendment process. I think they have to frame it as such because UIGEA has exemptions for Intrastate gaming.http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_1451-1500/sb_1463_bill_20120224_introduced.pdf

[Lrgetrout 1]

Yeah, the California bills have never been written in a good way for California residents. It is something, but this something is likely worse than nothing for the time being.

[Cruz 2]

Under other circumstances I might think that it is better than nothing also. But the California legislation is being used to block any future federal legislation from ever entering California. Worse than that, California players represent almost 40% of the online players in the US. Once those players are out of circulation federal legislation becomes less necessary and less likely.I've listened to COPA for a long time. They speak as if California players literally belong to them whether or not those online players have ever stepped one foot into a casino. They have no intention of ever sharing "their" players with the rest of the country.The restrictions for getting a license are huge. Not to mention the $30 million that would need to be paid to obtain it. And as tough as the restrictions are now, they will probably get tougher since some of the tribes are blocking the bill until the ability to run a site becomes even more restrictive.When COPA discusses the players, to my ear, they sound a lot like Bodog discussing their Recreation Player Model. Bodog openly wants what they call "net depositing" players on their site. They want players who play only for the fun of it. With the lack of competition that will exist in California with it's legislation, I think that there is a high liklihood that that will be the model that we Californians will essentially be playing under due to a high rake.