California online poker bill taken off another hearing agenda

ll seeking to legalise online poker in California has seemingly once again been removed from the agenda of a Governmental Organization (GO) Committee hearing on the issue.

AB 167, sponsored by Assemblyman Reginald Jones-Sawyer and introduced in January last year, was initially reported to have been on the agenda list of the hearing scheduled for later today (Wednesday).

The agenda list now does not state AB 167 as being on its agenda at all however, but does list AB 1437, a bill that would lead to the introduction of licensing fees and taxes on revenue for daily fantasy sports operators.

It is not the first time AB 167 has been taken off the schedule of a GO Committee hearing on the issue, as it was also pulled from a hearing in July along with Mike Gatto’s online poker bill, AB 9, which Gatto removed himself.

Three online poker bills were introduced in the state last year, including AB 431, authored by GO Committee chairman Adam Gray, which passed a GO Committee vote in April as well as an Assembly Appropriations Committee vote in May, but did not make any more significant progress in last year’s legislative session.

Gray is the author of the other two bills that were on the agenda at Wednesday’s hearing.

The bill does not include a “bad actor” clause that would ban operators that continued operating in the US after the introduction of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act from being licensed by the state.

The bill would allow for racetracks to offer online poker services.