Online Poker Bill Has Been Filed In New York Again
- NY SB 18 is a bill that has been filed in the New York Legislature that aims to legalize online poker.
- New York lawmakers are more than likely going to focus on sports betting in 2020.
- There have been many attempts to legalize online poker over the years but all have failed so far.
ALBANY, N.Y. – New York lawmakers are attempting to legalize online poker during the 2020 legislative session. This will be the seventh consecutive year in which they have tried to do so.
Legalizing Online Poker
State Senator Joseph Addabbo has introduced NY SB 18 to legalize online poker in New York. The main problem right now is the state of New York has poker as a prohibited game of chance. NY SB 18 was created to remove poker as a prohibited game of chance.
Doing so would allow online poker to be a form of legal gambling in New York. Once that is done, the bill in its current state will allow for plenty of online poker operators to work in New York.
If the bill passes, there will be 11 online poker licenses for the state. Each license is expensive at $10 million each, but each one will last for 10 years. Legal online poker operators will have a 15 percent revenue taxed put on them.
The Focus On Sports Betting
Although a bill has been introduced to legalize online poker, it is possible that the bill could be ignored by its own author. In the past two years, Sen. Addabbo has primarily focused on getting mobile sports betting legalized. He has expressed that he has plans of doing the same thing in 2020.
Doing so could lead the legalization of online poker being put on the backburner. The reason for this is legalizing mobile sports betting will likely be more profitable for the state. New York is losing money to New Jersey for not legalizing online and mobile sports wagering. Doing so would bring those tax dollars back to the Empire State.
Legal sports betting will have a bigger impact on New York than legalizing online poker. Due to that, lawmakers are likely going to focus on legalizing mobile sports wagering first. But as previously stated, they have failed to do so before.
If that continues to be the case, it is unlikely that the New York legislature will have time for online poker. Legal poker efforts have failed since 2014, and 2020 is looking to be more of the same.