Sat, 02/12/2011 – 03:38 – PokerPages Staff

In November last year, New Jersey claimed the honor of becoming the first state ever to pass a bill regulating and licensing online poker through its legislative body, the state senate.  Governor Chris Christie has yet to declare whether he will use his power of veto to kill the bill, but in many respects it would be a surprising – and financially destructive – move if he did.  The Governor is not known for his hostility to online poker and, presidential ambitions aside, he may be more inclined to adopt a pragmatic policy to increase much-needed revenue for his State – which taxing a lucrative internet poker business will certainly achieve – than try to appease his more fundamentalist Republican colleagues.

The latter are rarely satisfied that the descent into debauchery and decadence they fear can be halted; so terrified are they that we’re all poised to slide down the slippery slope into moral depravity that the moment one draconian law is passed, they immediately want another.  Blocking this bill is unlikely to mollify them; they’re far more likely to seek more clampdowns and prohibitions instead. But what about other states?  Can we begin to speak of a “New Jersey Effect?”

Just a few short years ago, it looked as though California might have beaten New Jersey to the statute book.  Back in 2008, it was the Sunshine State which was poised to become the first in America to regulate and license online poker.  But the coalition which had fought for the bill began to fight like cats in a sack, with card rooms and other gambling interests competing prematurely over who would get the biggest slice of the cake and the Indian casinos breaking out into some very unbrotherly infighting.  The bill fell apart as a result.

But New Jersey’s recent success has started to refocus interest in a Californian equivalent.  The new Executive Director of Poker Voters of America, Patrick Dorinson, is more confident than ever that his organization and the Morongo Tribe’s California Online Poker Association (COPA) can co-operate productively on getting a bill through the state legislature.

Dorinson believes that a consensually agreed bill supported by these two major associations is now a real possibility.  He certainly has strong credentials to achieve this ambition – Dorinson previously worked as a spokesperson for the Morongo Association.  Interestingly, there seems to be a complete lack of rancor about his departure from that position: he was “let go” by COPA but maintains that it was a pragmatic decision borne of a budget cut and that he left on good terms.  He subsequently threw his weight behind the Poker Voters of America because he remains committed to pushing for the legalization of online poker.
 
Dorinson is a veteran of Californian state politics, serving on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s press staff during the campaign to become Governor and playing a leading role during the 1990s in the Independent System Operator, the manager of California’s electricity grid.

He regards the New Jersey development as a valuable impetus to spur the supporters of online poker on in California.  And, he insists, these now include most of the tribes and card rooms in the state, who have realized that internet poker – far from threatening their bricks-and-mortar establishments – is likely to help them prosper.

The coming weeks and months will reveal whether a New Jersey Effect has indeed got some wind into its sails; but with Californian politicians looking for ways of raising revenue without increasing taxes, the prospects for online poker look better than they have for a very long time.