Having been the first US state to legalize intrastate online poker, Nevada is taking the required steps to ensure that it wouldn’t miss its share of the interstate online poker market. Nevada lawmakers are all set to debate a bill that will allow companies offering intrastate online poker products in Nevada to accept bets from players from other US states too.
Currently, interstate betting is prohibited all over the US, but a number of US states such as New Jersey and California are considering bills that will legalize certain forms of interstate online gambling.
Nevada’s new bill is called Assembly Bill 5 and will enable companies based in Nevada to expand to other US states too. This is just one of the gambling bills that are scheduled to be discussed in assembly, but it is the most important of all the gambling bills.
The bill was drafted by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, and Nevada officials already consider it to be very profitable. A. G. Burnett, chairman of the Gaming Control Board, said,
I think this is something that could help our state. Otherwise, I don’t think you’d see this kind of interest in it. This is something that would go out and allow our operators to be as competitive as they can be.
The bill, which is based on the gambling laws of 2011, will give Sandoval the opportunity to get into an agreement with the governors of other states so that several states can share player pools. Nevada dreams of expanding at a global level one of these days. Burnett said,
I would say the ability of the governor to enter into that kind of agreement, whether it is international or domestic, is extremely important.
Nevada decided to propose this bill because the US federal government has still not succeeded in passing a federal online gambling bill. Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Harry Reid of Nevada had tried their best to introduce a federal online poker bill, but the bill was just not considered important enough during the lame duck session of the Congress late last year. However, the senator has promised to try again this year. Individual US states, however, have decided that they will no longer wait for a federal online gaming bill.
Existing online gaming laws in Nevada do not permit operators to accept wagers from players in other states, but the latest bill aims to set operators free from this requirement.
