California may become the first state to legalize online poker after the federal government banned online gambling, taking advantage of a loophole in federal law. Andrew Luria reports.

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[CA] CBS13 – Video: California May Legalize Online Poker (07/22/08)

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The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), which oversees numerous online poker sites using Kahnawake-based Internet services in Canada, has released an official statement regarding the unfolding situation on UltimateBet Poker. The statement follows by several months the KGC’s earlier involvement in the resolution of a similar scandal at Absolute Poker.

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As the chairman of the Poker Players Alliance, former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, Republican of New York, has been outspoken about his distaste for the manner in which Congress has handled — or mishandled — legislation dealing with Internet gambling in the United States.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which Mr. D’Amato calls “preposterous,” kicked off a bevy of bills to counteract its effect. But none has had the success that the gambling enforcement act had in Congress in 2006.

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A proposal to legalize online poker in California made its way through the Senate Governmental Organization Committee last month and is now on its way to the Senate Appropriations Committee to be voted upon in August.

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Normally, the most vociferous calls for legalizing Internet gaming come from the growing online poker-playing community, offshore gambling site operators, civil libertarians and a handful of select members of Congress.

Add UNLV associate professor Kathryn LaTour to the chorus.

LaTour, who teaches in the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration, has co-authored a study that says the legalization and regulation of online gambling in the United States and Canada could help reduce some of the activity’s harm. Gambling addiction, she said, could be curtailed while regulation would keep underage gamblers out of the virtual casinos.

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In the United States,residents of 48 states can gamble legally, and no major city in the continental U.S. is located more than a short drive from a gambling venue. Yet a number of laws continue to restrict Americans’ ability to gamble on the Internet. The three main laws are:

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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently has gone after Internet poker businesses with a vengeance—even though it may not have the authority to do so—driving many of them overseas. Now the House of Representatives is considering legislation to tell the Justice Department to leave Internet poker businesses alone. So would that constitute a needed clarification of jurisdictional authority? Sadly, no. The same statutory ambiguities that the Justice Department is now using to drive Internet poker out of America are in the proposed bill.

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A delegation of European Union trade officials will conduct talks with US officials at the end of this month over prosecutions and market restrictions concerning online gambling that appear to European interests to be restrictive and discriminatory in nature.

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U.S. and Antigua and Barbuda officials have once again extended the deadline for resolving their online gambling dispute.

The latest deadline for coming to an agreement about the U.S. online gambling ban and the compensation Antigua and Barbuda would receive because of it was July 11. That deadline came and went without an agreement.

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FARIBAULT — A recent study says that gambling is becoming an addiction among high school students, but local school officials say they don’t see it happening here.

According to a 2007 Minnesota Student Survey, more than 60 percent of 12th-grade boys said they played cards for money. Nationwide, 4 to 8 percent of teens are projected to already have a gambling issue, while another 10 to 15 percent are said to be at risk for a developing a problem, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling.

So far, any indication of a problem in Faribault isn’t evident, said Bob Stepaniak, superintendent of the Faribault School District.

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