It’s been a bad week for online poker legislation as the state of New York will not be opening up its doors to online poker players in 2017. We’ll start our weekly recap of the poker news with the full details on that story.
New York Won’t Legalize Online Poker In 2017
And just like that, the poker push in New York has folded.
The state of New York has announced that there will not be any online poker legislation for the foreseeable future. Senate Bill 3898 passed through the state senate by a vote of 54-8. The bill got to the governor for the second straight year but failed once again. J. Gary Pretlow was the main champion of the bill. Originally, he had a lot of hesitation about the bill but then worked hard to learn about online poker, and became one of the main backers. While all of his issues weren’t dealt with, he was ready to get behind it. While many saw this as the final hurdle to clear, it appears that there are more stumbling blocks along the way.
That being said, it is not an election year in New York, so they don’t have to start all over from scratch with the bill. However, after months and months of positive progress, New York is back to square one with online poker.
Australian Online Poker Ban On Hold?
There is good news from Australia as supporters of online poker will at least get a sit-down meeting with their opponents. Last week, there was a call for an investigation into online poker by a vote of 46-22. This investigation was spurred on by a grassroots movement of people who don’t want poker banned. They have earned this small win and will now get this meeting, which has to be done before September 14, 2017.
This also means that there could be changes to the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill, which was basically the end of online poker in Australia. The hope is that the government can be convinced to make some changes that would loosen the restrictions.
Joseph Del Duca, the founder of the Australian Online Poker Alliance, feels that a meeting is a positive step but told online poker fans not to get their hopes up. He is looking to get more help from Australian professional poker players, along with media such as PokerNews, to raise more awareness. Senator David Leyonhjelm is helping the cause as he believes that people should have the right to make the choice to play online poker. This investigation is going to start very soon and while it isn’t a sure thing that Australia will get online poker back, it is definitely a step in the right direction.
PokerStars Moves Into the Indian Market
Amaya Inc, the owner of PokerStars, has announced that they are moving into the Indian market. They have plans to launch there by the end of 2017. That’s important because India has about 1.2 billion smartphone users and they would like to get a portion of those people playing their games. There are estimates that there will be 190 million people in India playing games on mobile devices by 2021.
This would be a huge boost for Amaya, who has lost some business as a result of the Australian poker restrictions. They’re now out of that market and are looking for ways to replace that revenue. This will help as well as the potential for some places in the United States to pass online poker legislation.