Online Poker Pushes Fail in Illinois and Massachusetts

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Tuesday, June 4th, 2013 | Written by Stephen Smith

Two of the brighter hopes for proponents of regulated American online poker fell short in recent days as initiatives to bring regulated online poker to Illinois and Massachusetts failed to gain the necessary support for passage.

Illinois declines to reintroduce the issue of online gambling

We saw a strong push for regulated online gambling in Illinois emerge early in 2013, with powerful political forces making the decision to attach online gambling regulation to the much larger issue of land-based casino expansion.

But that push faltered in the face of reportedly stiff opposition to online gambling from the horse racing lobby. The online gambling portion of the casino expansion bill was strippped from the legislation. Not that it mattered much, as the larger bill failed to make headway during the session.

Rumors flew that online gambling would be introduced as a separate, standalone bill backed by State Senate President John Cullerton. Cullerton’s office confirmed the rumors, but gave no word as to when the bill would be introduced.

As of last Friday, the clock has officially run out for online gambling legislation in Illinois – at least for now. The current session of the Illinois Legislature concluded at the end of that day, and lawmakers won’t return to Springfield to take up the business of bills until the fall.

Online gambling efforts face pushback in Massachusetts

While the clock ran out for online gambling in Illinois, Massachusetts is a slightly different situation – but still with the same ultimate result. In MA, lawmakers have made a few attempts to latch online gambling regulation onto the state’s budget for the coming fiscal year. First the Massachusetts House tried to attach an online gambling regulation amendment to their version of the state budget. That amendment was stripped out at the very last minute.

Undaunted, supporters of online poker attempted to execute the same strategy with the Senate version of the state budget. A similar – but not identical – amendment containing provisions for the regulation of online gambling was attached to the Senate budget. But that attempt failed as well, with the amendment removed for what PokerFuse.com calls constitutional violations.

The future for online poker in Illinois and Massachusetts

While the record for online poker supporters is heavy on the loss column in both states, that shouldn’t be taken as an indication that legal online poker doesn’t have a future in Illinois and Massachusetts.

In fact, most analysts consider both states to have regulations in their near-term future. In short, it’s not really a question of if, but a question of when. But for the immediate future, online poker enthusiasts will have to wait for a regulated form of online gambling to come to their respective state – at least until after the summer, when political gamesmanship will resume anew in the statehouses of Massachusetts and Illinois.