Legalized Online Poker in Florida?
Written by Roger S | Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
At the beginning of July, Florida saw a number of significant changes in its gambling laws, especially those affecting poker. For the first time, local poker players could enjoy uncapped games and the state’s poker rooms are currently enjoying long lines of people waiting to enjoy this type of entertainment.
For the first time, too, the World Poker Tour has scheduled a stop in the Sunshine State next April, while the Director of Media for the WSOP stated: “We know Florida is already a hotbed for poker, just based on the consistent amount of entrants we get each summer at the World Series of Poker from the state.
The next obvious step for the state seems to be the introduction of online poker and gambling proponents are urging legislators to stop and consider this option as a means to increase tax revenues and fight a $6 billion deficit that the state will see in 2011.
A number of politicians have already said that they would back a plan to see online poker legalized and regulated in the state, including Rep. Joseph Aburzzo (D – Wellington). According to Abruzzo, a proposal such as this could easily generate $200 million each year. He also suggested that operators pay a licensing fee of $500,000 and a 20% tax on gross receipts.
On the surface, this looks like a win-win situation for everybody, since over 1 million people in Florida alone play online poker.
However, the strongest opposition to his idea comes from the pro-poker movement, the Poker Players Alliance, which prefers a ‘federal approach’ to online poker (ie. the scrapping of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the adoption of legalized and regulated legislation in all states). PPA spokesperson, Theresa Schofield said that adopting legislation as proposed by Rep. Aburzzo would only allow Floridians to play in these games, and prize money would thus remain very limited.
It will be interesting to see how things develop over this issue.
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· Written by Roger S · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
