California Senator Louis Correa’s intrastate poker bill now incorporates up to five licences that will permit Indian tribes to operate websites such as internet casinos and card rooms as opposed to the original proposed single site, one licence.
The amendments in the SB40 bill at first pressed by the Morongo Tribe-led California Online Poker association (COPA) specified that three of the five licences to own and operate intrastate poker websites must be introduced as soon as possible. An additional two licenses might be allocated in the next three years should the California Gambling Control Commission think it necessary.
Incorporated into the bill is a licence fee of 10% of stakes, this amount must be paid on top of the once-off fee defined in Correa’s original draft, outlining the state’s right to collect “licensing or administrative fees that the department may assess as repayment for the costs of implementing this chapter.”
With added support from COPA, the influential California Nations Indian Gaming Association and the California Gaming Association (CGA), Correa’s bill has received further public support and greater support from the tribes and card rooms-defined in the bill as probable stakeholders in Californian internet poker than the SB45 application put forward by Senator Rod Wright.
