Nevada poker bill still alive
Bill sponsor William Horne brokers intrastate compromise and stresses that initiative has full backing of Governor Sandoval.
Nevada’s poker bill remained on track yesterday as Assembly politicians brokered an amended version that would enable intrastate poker but defer to Congress on operators accepting out-of-state and international players.
Assembly Bill 258 was passed unanimously by the Assembly Judiciary Committee, with committee chair and bill sponsor William Horne telling Card Player that: “[T]he parties agreed that intranet poker will be able to be commenced, and the Nevada Gaming Commission will be able to license gaming for online poker, before the federal regulation happens.”
The amended bill would prevent Nevada implementing from regulating or taxing out-of-state play until federal laws applying to online poker were in place or the United States Department of Justice had given Nevada the go-ahead.
Horne’s comments however appeared to contradict an earlier report in the Las Vegas Sun that the Committee had approved an amended bill that would allow the Nevada Gaming Commission to begin drafting rules for regulating online poker, but which also stipulated that any form of internet gambling in Nevada “would not be implemented until sanctioned by Congress or the Justice Department.”
Horne’s compromise was brokered after he received a letter from Governor Sandoval stating that while he supported “the Legislature in taking the first steps in creating Nevada’s online poker regulatory framework”, it was also “important…that any bill that reaches my desk not create disharmony between state and federal law on this issue”.
In the letter seen by eGaming Review, Sandoval wrote: “Thus I would hope that any bill passed will not facilitate the legalization of online poker before the federal ban is lifted, or encourage any action that would hinder the United States Congress’s efforts towards the lifting of the ban.”
Therefore, wrote Sandoval: “I would ask that any bill on this subject encourage Congress to enact legislation providing for the licensure of online poker as soon as is practicable.”
With the problematic provisions relating to out-of-state and international play now removed, according to Horne, the bill now moves to the Assembly floor for a vote. If passed, it will move on to the Senate.