Surprising move in the state
This week brought about another movement in regards to the attempts to legalize online poker at the state level, but also in Washington DC. On one side, Senator Harry Reid promotes his federal proposal to legalize online gambling, while on the other, it was reported by the Washington Times that the state council on Dec. 7 stepped into the process of legalization of online poker and fantasy sports gambling through the city lottery by attaching the proposal into a massive bill aimed at filling a budget gap of $200 million.
The council passed an amendment enabling the D.C. Lottery to enlarge its offering by “games of skill and games of chance.” It included little notice or consultation in passing the amendment, authored by Democrat Michael A. Brown, which aims at setting up a private computer network run by the D.C. Lottery that would allow customers to play poker online as long as they were playing in the District.
Brown explained that "...there are at least 12 states contemplating legislation similar to this amendment," naming California and New Jersey, along with New York and Illinois. He added that "online poker is currently played by D.C. residents and offered by vendors outside the United States," and that his proposal would raise more than $13.5 million by the end of 2014.
On the other side, even though the amendment passed the city's legislative general counsel Brian K. Flowers, it by-passed D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, who assessed that there are complex federal statutes that need to be to be analyzed before he would be prepared to give a view. Apart from this, it's possible that Congress may strive to block the DC move. However, Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray voted to approve the budget amendment.
In terms of potential resistance from Congress, Brown commented: "Obviously Congress can do a variety of things with anything we pass, but we can't stop from being innovative just because they legislate what we do."
At the moment, if the amendment gets passed, it's not quite clear how the new games will be implemented by the D.C Lottery, which saw its revenues decline by over $36 million since 2006.
In addition, Brown told the newspaper: "This specific area of law is a bit unsettled. However there is nothing in current local or federal law that prohibits this type of gaming and the U.S. Department of Justice has made no effort to curtail procurements in other states."
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