“Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee mark 2. He’ll be a miracle worker if he can get all the factions within Racing to go walkabout with him. Even more so if he helped develop a Racing product for the punters who actually pay for it.”
William Hill chief Ralph Topping welcomes new BHA chief executive Paul Bittar in his own unique fashion
Why the delay on online poker in California?
Professor I. Nelson Rose ponders the reasons behind the hold up in legalising intra-state internet poker in California.
O
n 22 August 2011, Cali- fornia State Senate president pro tempore Darrell Steinberg and senator Roderick D. Wright, chair of the Governmental Organization Committee, sent a ‘Dear Stakeholder’ letter, announcing that the bills to legalise intra-state internet poker would not be voted on last year.
d practice
being rigged and not random, cases which would all be investigated thoroughly. To date at least, every one of those of investigations centred around the general accusation of unfairness revealed that the player had been subject to bad luck rather than bad practice.
The conspiracy theorist critics of B2 gaming machines would perhaps be reassured by the Gambling Commis- sion’s technical standards for machines, which were them- selves based on established codes. These standards impose controls over the random number generators, their processes and the games to which they are linked, all of which protect customers. They also determine matters such as speed of play. Independent Testing Houses review these processes and the Independent Testing Houses themselves are licensed by the Gambling Commission. Nowadays, disputes consist mainly of actual tangible issues such as a machine malfunction or software failure, such as the game freezing mid-play or pre-payout. Often in these cases, following the case being presented to the oper- ator by IBAS, the customer is offered some form of payment via a goodwill gesture or ex gratia payment by those more customer service enlightened operators.
There are still the standard ‘I’ve lost my winning ticket, they won’t pay me’, ‘I bet on red why haven’t I been paid?’ or ‘I got a bonus but it did not pay out as much as it should have’ types of disputes. But these are either resolved via an inspection of the log files or back office PC. Sometimes still, with customer loyalty in mind, the operator will choose to seek to resolve the matter amicably once the head office/customer service department of the operator gets involved.
Retail betting was responsible for the majority of the record number of disputes handled by IBAS in 2011, but it will be interesting to see whether the growth in machine use - possibly including betting terminals as well as gaming machines - will, over time, significantly reduce the role of IBAS in the retail betting industry.
BettingBusinessInteractive • FEBRUARY 2012 41
Why the delay? After admitting that the issue has been studied for the past three years, including ‘numerous hearings’ and ‘hours of testimony over the last several months’, sena- tors Steinberg and Wright declared: “Despite these efforts, significant, unre- solved issues remain, including tribal exclusivity and waiver of sovereign immunity, the types of games that would be autho- rised, who would be eligible to apply for gaming site licences and potential federal constitutional ques- tions.”
A non-lawyer would take about three seconds to read that sentence. I took more than two hours to analyse it
and write this response: It is always risky to give excuses. First, these have to be the only important problems remaining; if there were others, they would have been men- tioned. Second, we can treat this as a list, a list with short answers: 1) Tribal exclusivity. A few tribes assert that their compacts with the state, giving them the exclusive right to have slot machines in return for revenue sharing, mean no one else can operate internet poker. They argue that a home per- sonal computer becomes a slot machine if used for online betting. If that were true, the state would already be in breach for having authorised at-home wagering on horse races. Also, this is probably an argument most tribes would not want to win. If Califor- nia were to no longer receive a share of tribal gaming revenue, the state would authorise highly- taxed, privately-owned land-based casinos in its major cities.
2) Waiver of sovereign immunity. The state has signed dozens of compacts with tribes for both casinos and off-track betting. Waivers for online poker would be no different. 3) The types of games. Sports betting is prohibited by federal law. Remote betting on horse racing is already legal. No one is going to compete against the California State Lottery. Casino games are limited to tribes, and bingo to tribes and charities; it would require an amendment to the California Constitution to allow private operators. So, there’s only poker. 4) Who would be eligible to apply? Politically, the state’s tribes and cardclubs have to get at least one of the licences each. Politi- cians are looking at legalis- ing online poker to raise revenue. So, at least one licence has to go to an outside company with more money than any California operator, such as Caesars or
Bwin.party. The only question is whether there will be three, five, or an
unlimited number of licences.
5) Potential federal con- stitutional questions. This is probably a reference to the position by the Bush Administration that even intra-state internet poker violates the federal Wire Act. If true, there would be nothing more to discuss. So, what is really going on? Maybe it really is ques- tions like these, which could be answered quickly by any competent gaming lawyer. Let’s hope that it is not just politicians delaying so they can get more cam- paign contributions.
© 2012, I. Nelson Rose. Prof. Rose is recognised as one of the world’s leading experts on gambling law, and is a consultant and expert witness for governments, industry and players. His latest books, Internet Gaming Law (1st and 2nd editions), Blackjack and the Law and Gaming Law: Cases and Materials, are available through his website:
www.gamblingandthelaw. com.
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