Judging by the latest reports, federal online poker legalization has gloomy prospects for the passage in the 2013 session of Congress.
Namely, a number of land casino execs recently stated that state-by-state legalisation a good alternative option, and even though the bill's author Sen. Harry Reid and Nevada Republican Senator Dean Heller are willing to try again to pass it in 2013, there are numerous opinions that there is little chance an online poker bill would make it through Congress.
The reasons for such opinions include opposition from tribal groups that seek to keep their first nation sovereignty, individual states and governors who want to maintain their lottery and gambling rights and Republican conservatives, whose political manifesto proclaims there should be a "prohibition" on Internet gaming.
It was opined in media that "If there is going to be a cohesive effort to legalize Internet poker on a national scale, commercial casinos, tribal gaming and state lotteries all have to be on the same page."
In addition, certain analysts expressed concern as per whether that can be achieved at all, having in mind that the National Indian Gaming Association which has offered to work with Reid and other senators next year, will have its own conditions concerning access to markets, current compacts with states and rights to make its own decisions on gaming issues.
Also, the opposition of the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries is assessed as an additional difficulty, as well as the increasing number of individual states' legalization initiatives.
One of the analysts opined that "It will become increasingly hard to pass federal legislation as more states adopt online gaming legislation of their own. Many companies had already started to shift resources to focus on state level online gaming strategies."
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