California online gambling bill fails

[corner-ad id=3]The attempt to bring California into the legalized online poker world failed again with State Senator Lou Correa’s Internet Poker and Consumer Protection Act of 2013 bill failing to get heard in the current legislative session before the September break.

Even thou the Senator managed to make the bill a matter of urgency it still will not be brought up for the last few days of this session. Conformation was posted on the Poker Players Alliance twitter account.

The Senator made the bill a matter of urgency by explaining by saying:

“This act is an urgency statute necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety within the meaning of Article IV of the Constitution and shall go into immediate effect. The facts constituting the necessity are: In order to protect the interests of Californians who play Internet poker games and to ensure that people play fair games, that the state realizes the revenues, and that suitable persons operate intrastate Internet poker games, it is necessary that the act take effect immediately.”

Correa’s bill named SB 678 would have required over 65% of votes from the Senate and House to make the bill legal and allow Californians to join Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey in the online gambling market. However there is still one more online poker bill left and that is Senator Roderick Wright’s SB 51, the Internet Gambling Consumer Protection and Public-Private Partnership Act of 2013.

But observers give this bill also very little chance of being heard in the current session, so the best that can be hoped for by supporters is an end of year bill entering California.