Gaming Law, Gambling Legislation Mid Year Update
The tax and spending policy package signed into law on July 4 by President Donald Trump reduced the amount of gambling losses an individual filer can deduct against their winnings from 100% to 90%. The special edition poker tournament will be free to play, but in order to win part of the $250 prizepool, you’ll need to get one PokerListings is one of the world’s oldest trusted poker sites. Meanwhile, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham – hardly the most pro-gambling state in the Union – has introduced the Internet Gambling Control Act of 2026, which proposes an outright ban on all forms of Internet gaming in America. There have been many attempts, of course – notably from Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) – to push through natonwide poker legislation – but so far, none have prevailed. Also high on that list is California, which has a history of solid land-based cardrooms and powerful from tribal casinos.
Despite some legal scholars urging modernization, lawmakers have not amended the prohibition. The statute criminalizes transmitting or receiving gambling information over the internet. The Virginia Lottery manages gaming oversight and has yet to develop poker regulations. The state’s criminal code outlaws any game of chance played for money. A state-regulated poker system is still a long way off, given constitutional obstacles and fierce opposition. Until significant political momentum builds, licensed poker sites are unlikely to appear.
Pennsylvania: MSIGA Membership is Official
On Tuesday, the Sports Betting Alliance (SBA), an advocacy group formed by the country’s major sportsbooks, sued the city over a new licensing and taxation structure that is supposed to take effect on Thursday,… Read more » It took off in 1984, when the General Assembly ordered the Attorney General to regulate the state’s cardrooms, and was further regulated in… Read more » Since 1854, when the California Grand Casino opened in Pacheco, poker has been established in the state. We respect our trusted industry peers and scan this site with the latest security standards. It looks like the shared liquidity program has benefited Delaware more than it has New Jersey.
An Industry Divided
Assemblyman Clinton Calabrese introduced Assembly Bill 5196 not long ago, aiming to regulate sweepstakes online casinos. New Jersey already has a well-established US online poker scene, but a new bill could shake things up this year. Meanwhile, Senator Joseph Addabbo is pushing a separate bill for broader iGaming regulation, including measures targeting unregulated sweepstakes casinos. If things go smoothly, Pennsylvania players could be competing in multi-state tournaments just in time for WSOP Online 2025. But the final hurdle’s been cleared, and Pennsylvania’s nearly 13 million residents will have access to a much larger US online poker scene.
Everyone else was either teaching or taking summer school and I didn’t want to do that, but I also didn’t want to look like the laziest MA candidate, so I claimed I was furthering my 'research’ into poker players in Vegas. While the other students in her graduate program spent the summer teaching or taking classes, Welman headed to Las Vegas under the extremely convenient premise that the trip would further her research into poker players. A VPN bypasses geo-restrictions, but it also offers enhanced security and protection of your online details when playing online poker.
- Most of the US jurisdictions don’t have a state law that would explicitly make it illegal to play on online poker sites.
- Some states – such as Hawaii, Utah, and Wyoming – have long resisted both poker and other forms of gaming due to factors such as religion and politics, which have influenced their state laws.
- Maine joins Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, and Rhode Islandand Connecticut as the only states to have cleared the path for legal, regulated online poker.
- While live poker is permitted in the state of North Carolina, there is no legal provision for online poker.
Oklahoma prohibits poker platforms under its gaming compacts and criminal statutes. Analysts expect Ohio to revisit the issue once tax data from its new sports betting market becomes available. No momentum currently exists for legal digital poker rooms within the state.
First, we attempt to summarize the current legal status of online poker in the United States. Simply legalizing online poker seems unlikely to alleviate major MTA funding concerns. Addabbo was a major backer of efforts to legalize online sports betting in the state as well. In May, Addabbo introduced a more scaled-down version of the legislation that only included online poker. Could online gaming, including online poker, be back on the agenda in New York? The hope would be that online gambling legislation now has few roadblocks.
Originally, the plan was to approve licenses for gaming operators in early 2020, but the pandemic changed the state’s course of action. WSOP launched its site on the 888 poker platform in Pennsylvania in 2021, in time to offer WSOP bracelet events online in the state. The current poker sites in the Keystone State include Borgata, partnered through partypoker, Bet MGM, and PokerStars.
Legislators in Delaware weren’t going to get left in the dust regarding online poker regulation. Revenue numbers and statistics are not available for much of Nevada’s online poker history because regulations stipulate that there are not enough sites to warrant the distribution of that information. Ultimate gaming was the first company to launch online poker for residents of Nevada in April 2013 via a partnership with Station Casinos. WV did sign the multi-state poker agreement in late 2023, though no online poker sites have yet come forth with the intention to launch there. They are the only state to decide to pass a law essentially forbidding any participation in any federal online gambling network.
Because of the public’s strong opposition to gambling expansion, poker reform is not currently on the legislative agenda and is unlikely to be in the future. Legal gambling in Florida is regulated by the Florida Gaming Control Commission. This compact has enabled larger tournaments and consistent player traffic.
This appears to be positive news, and hopefully the dreaded Wire Act will no longer represent a stumbling block for interstate online poker. Congress to the World Trade Organization, a new chink of hope for online poker appeared in the form of an opinion from the US Department of Justice (DoJ). At first sight, one might assume this was the clause that would allow online poker to slip out from under the UIGEA jackboot.
Most recently, Texas lawmaker Gene Wu introduced a bill seeking to clarify a legal loophole in the Lone Star state. On the contrary, politicians often introduce bills supporting live poker efforts. For example, most states will grant a gaming license, which in turn will dictate what games can be offered. Most of the time, poker goes hand-in-hand with other gaming interests.
For poker players, the key takeaway is that change is happening. Meanwhile, New Jersey is tackling sweepstakes casinos, a growing part of the online gaming world. Indiana was once a frontrunner for US online poker legalization, but a corruption scandal in 2023 put everything on hold. On the one hand, this could be a strategic move to make the bill more appealing to lawmakers hesitant about online gambling expansion. New York has flirted with online poker legislation for years, and 2025 is shaping up to be another big push. In 2020, state lawmakers passed legislation allowing for five brick-and-mortar casinos, all… Read more »
Pennsylvania was also recently asked to join the MSIGA, with some poker sites expected to share liquidity by the end of the first quarter. The bill makes two specific mentions of poker, including in the definition of „authorized interactive game,” which is „any internet-based version or substantial equivalent of a table game, slot machine constituting spinning reels, (or) poker tournament.” He’s a regular in live tournaments and cash games at buy-in levels around $400-$2,000. Along with the Seminole Tribe, Hard Rock already operates an online betting monopoly in Florida, which includes slot-like games. The wild card on the scale could be the new casinos themselves.
For players who have followed Ignition’s recent issues The Colossus draws players from every skill level, making it one of These operations often advertise “free play” with the option to purchase virtual coins for prizes, skirting traditional gambling laws. As of this draft, the bill wants to ensure responsible gambling practices by earmarking $25 million annually for casino employee training and mandating servers to be housed in state casinos.
However, no operator has launched beyond casino gaming into online poker. Rhode Island, through Senate Bill 948, legalized online casino gaming in 2023, explicitly including poker. The Ohio Casino Control Commission regulates a handful of land-based casinos and mobile sportsbooks, but lacks the authority to approve poker websites. New York has not legalized online poker, but it is considered a key battleground state for upcoming iGaming legislation. Many players also explore New Jersey poker options through offshore sites for the expanded tournaments and international player pools they offer. A2578 amended the Casino Control Act in 2013, legalizing internet poker and casino games under the Division of Gaming Enforcement.
In January, PokerNews spoke with New York State Senator Joseph Addabbo Jr. about his efforts to bring online poker to the state’s 20 million residents. „First, FanDuel is supportive of the provision authorizing the Governor to enter into agreements with other states for multi-jurisdictional Internet games such as poker,” Ventre told Connecticut lawmakers on Wednesday. While a firm launch date has not been set, industry experts anticipate that the first legal poker hands could be dealt later in 2026 or early 2027. In any case, players must still wait for regulation to be drafted, with the Maine Gambling Control Unit responsible for drafting the specific rules and licensing requirements. Other states with bills put forward for online gaming and poker so far this year include Massachusetts, Indiana, and Wyoming. There www.pokernewsdaily.com are 34 New York casinos overall, 21 tribal and 13 commercial, which employed nearly 70,000 as of 2023 and brought in $4.72 billion in gross gaming revenue.
No one ever said, \”well, you can’t interview players because you have to be hot to do that,\” but no one was really clamoring for me to interview players on camera. There were a few players like Kathy Liebert, JJ Liu, and Jennifer Harman that weren’t sexualized all the time, but the default for players and media personalities alike was to frame them in a sexy way. How did that affect the opportunities you received, the way players treated you, and how hard you had to work before people assumed you knew what you were talking about? The first two weeks of December may not have enough players for two giant festivals at the same time, but there’s still plenty of interest to go around if they all learn to share. Nothing has been announced yet, but players have been locking in a seat with victories in WPT championships throughout the year, so it’s going to happen. So, while you can’t play poker online in the Sunshine State, you can play at licensed real-life poker rooms.
Meanwhile, some states have long embraced poker such as Nevada, New Jersey, and Louisiana. Find out more about the poker scene in each of those six states.
The combination of the Attorney General’s actions and the bill’s passage in the Legislature led to a mass exodus from the state even before the governor officially signed the bill into law. The legislative intent section further states that regulators must deny or discontinue operations of any person or affiliate who “knowingly accepts revenue” derived from sweepstakes gaming, directly or indirectly. They may issue subpoenas, conduct investigations, and send cease-and-desist orders to ensure compliance with the law.
Here, we have thousands of people that this will impact who can’t play. Jason Smith, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, also committed to reversing the effects of the BBB gambling provision. So you might have a $3,000 cap on the amount of loss you can write off in a given year for your stocks, but you can carry that forward to the next year for your next year’s taxes; not the case with gambling.” “But his point actually doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, because there’s also an issue with gambling in our tax code.
So, if livestreams are paramount, they can demand you delay your updates and you have to say yes. You are also beholden to your client to deliver a product they want. However, since the media has largely moved in-house or to a model in which the outlet is a contractor of the casino or tour, you only get one version of the story.
Virginia Bill Introduced to Legalize Online Gambling, Including Poker
The bill would allow the state’s casinos and their online partners to apply for licenses and would tax the industry at 15% of gross gaming revenue. Maryland and Virginia have both seen online gaming bills filed and other stats are considering casino expansion and adding sports betting. Senate Bill 1464, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Tony Scott, would allow Gov. Ned Lamont „to enter into agreements for the purpose of authorizing online gaming operators to conduct multijurisdictional Internet gaming for peer-to-peer casino games.” Collectively known as the Wabanaki Nations, these tribes have been granted exclusive rights to operate online poker and casino gaming in the state. Under SB S2614, all nine sports betting operators already in the state would be allowed to offer online gaming. Those in the industry believe the Empire State could be the largest online gaming market in the country, potentially adding population of 19.6 million to the country’s online poker shared liquidity agreement.
The bill would bar any federally-recognized tribal nations in New York from offering competing online-gaming platforms without being licensed by the state, but they would be welcomed into the bidding process. S8185 calls for the state to issue three interactive gaming licenses, to be awarded through a competitive bidding process open to currently approved gambling licensees in the state. The bill declares a \”conservative estimate\” that approving online gaming would net New York a much needed billion dollars in tax revenue in it its first year. S8185 notes that neighboring states Pennsylvania and New Jersey generated roughly $3.5 billion in online-gaming in revenue, collecting about a billion dollars in combined revenue for the two states.
Global Poker is an example of an online poker site that has implemented this model. A sweepstakes model allows online poker with cash prizes for citizens in all of the US states. NJ, Nevada & Delaware share a common player pool with a multi-state network operated by WSOP/888 Poker. Once enough states have committed themselves to public opinion on online gambling, many others are likely to follow suit.
Minnesota does sport a modest casino and poker culture with 23 brick and mortar casinos, many of which accept patrons who are 18 and over, although some are for ages 21 and up. The only caveat – PokerStars as a platform in the US migrated across, meaning players now can only access it via the FanDuel platform. This incorporated Pennsylvania into the shared-liquidity compact, allowing PokerStars players to compete with others in PA, MI and NJ.