ONLINE POKER TO FEATURE IN SEPTEMBER HEARING
State Senator Bonacic to put the issue on the September agenda.
The chairman of the New York state Senate Racing, Gaming, and Wagering Committee, Sen. John Bonacic, has confirmed that he will schedule a hearing on internet poker in September this year, explaining that he wants to examine views and opinions on the topic, and will be inviting major state operators and other interested parties to participate.
The September hearing is likely to be purely exploratory, as the senator had also indicated that he intends to hear further evidence on internet gambling generally in the 2016 legislative season.
The Senator has a progressive view of online gambling, and in 2014 he introduced online poker legalisation bill S 5302, re-introducing it this year after it ran out of time.
New York has a much larger population than New Jersey – more than double – and offers more potential, according to some observers.
But online poker in isolation will not bring in anywhere near the sort of revenues that overall online gambling can deliver, and the consensus appears to be that fully legalised online gambling in the state is probably not likely to occur in the immediate future.