iPoker Powwow Takes Place in Sacramento

Last week Assemblyman Isadore Hall addressed tribal representatives and gambling operators during Sacramento’s iGaming Legislative Symposium, where he outlined online poker’s future in 2014.

Talks had stopped dead in their tracks last year when tribes and lawmakers failed to meet an agreement on the drafted legislation. Wouldn’t you guess it, their differences are coming back to the table. Tribes are scrambling to agree with lawmakers on terms that would give everyone a fair share in the market.

The revenue for net-based poker in California alone is an estimated $200 million annually. According to research organizations Academicon and PokerScout, revenue for the sport could reach upwards of $400 million annually within a decade. However, casino games like slots and craps already eclipse the revenue derived from poker.

Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson argues the point that online gambling is increasingly more accessible and might allow armchair gamblers an all too easy way to bet the farm and lose their homes.

States see the introduction of online poker inevitable, drawing examples from offshore sites currently in operation. New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware, have already approved Internet poker within their jurisdictions.