For over a decade, California has been unable to advance any legislation pertaining to a legal and regulated online poker industry. While there are many parties interested in seeing such an industry, two main coalitions could never seem to agree on how the industry should look and who could be part of it. For many years, legislation has been stuck at the question on whether PokerStars and others who they termed ‘bad-actors’, should be able to offer their services to Californian online poker players. Now, however, one of the strongest parties in what made up the PokerStars alliance has left the coalition, and this could finally be the change needed to see online poker legislation advance in the Golden State.
This week, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, one of two particularly powerful American Indian tribes that have stood by PokerStars for 9 years, announced that they were pulling out of the coalition. The tribe’s executive director of public affairs, Jacob Coin, said that, effective immediately, San Manuel was ending its partnership with PokerStars, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and the Commerce Club, Hawaiian Gardens and Bicycle Club land poker rooms in California.
“Because this effort has taken so long and required so much tribal effort and attention … San Manuel has decided to turn to other tribal issues at this time and has thus terminated its participation in the coalition,” said Coin. “San Manuel wishes every success to the remaining coalition members and appreciates the fine and effective working relationship it has had with all of them. No inferences of any kind should be drawn from its decision to withdraw from the coalition.”
So what does this mean for California’s online poker landscape? Will we finally see some progress? One tribal executive was quoted as describing San Manuel’s exit from the coalition as a “titanic shift in the landscape.” It could very well trigger a response by the Morongo tribe as well to leave the coalition.
San Manuel may have wanted to extricate itself from the coalition, based on the fact that PokerStars, the Hawaiian Gardens and now, more recently, the Bicycle Club have found themselves tangled in legal webs.
One scenario is that after the summer, new legislation will be introduced, based on the changing landscape, with the hope that finally, things will move forward for one of the largest markets for online poker in the United States.
