With the clock running out on the current legislative session, a bill in the California General Assembly has been fast-tracked with a few revisions toward passage by its author. Proposed back in February, State Senator Lou Correa‘s SB 678, the Authorization and Regulation of Internet Poker and Consumer Protection Act, wasn’t able to work its way through its committee in a timely manner. This forced Correa to make a few changes to the bill and reintroduce it with “urgency status.” This basically means there will not have to be a formal committee hearing on the topic.

Update: A Tweet from the Poker Players Alliance claims that SB 678 will not be addressed in 2013, although there are still a few weeks left on the legislative calendar.

However, instead of having to earn a simple majority in the General Assembly for passage, SB 678 now has to achieve a two-thirds majority vote of both houses of the General Assembly. Although that may be difficult to get, there is an advantage to the “urgency status” of the legislation. Instead of having a waiting period after its passage in the General Assembly and potential signage by GovernorJerry Brown, if the bill passes with the two-thirds vote necessary, it would immediately go into effect once Brown signs it.

“In order to protect the interests of Californians who play internet poker games and to ensure that people play fair games, that the state realizes the revenues, and that suitable persons operate intrastate internet poker games, it is necessary that this act take effect immediately,” Article 10, Section 5 of the bill states.

Although Correa has made other changes to SB 678, including allowing California’s powerful Indian gaming consortium and poker rooms to operate online poker websites, several obstacles must be overcome. The Indian gaming lobby continues to block such efforts due to the potential impact on their casino operations, the poker rooms want to be the only outlet for online poker, and the horse racing tracks want a piece of the action. The warring factions have for years been unable to find a common ground in order to move legislation forward.

Correa’s SB 678 isn’t the only bill on the table for regulating the online poker industry in California. Fellow Senator Roderick Wright (pictured) has had his own online poker bill – SB 51, the Internet Gambling Consumer Protection and Public-Private Partnership Act – since December of last year, but it has languished in the committee he chairs. The Indian gaming consortium has also proposed its own online poker legislation, but it hasn’t been assigned an official bill status in the General Assembly.

The clock is ticking on the online gaming bills in the California legislature if they are to be passed this year. With the legislative session scheduled to end on September 13, all proposed bills must make it through their respective committees and the two houses of the General Assembly prior to that date. If the bills cannot get out of their respective committees, then any passage of online poker regulation would be effectively dead for this year and need to be reintroduced for the next legislative session in 2014.

California is arguably the major battleground for online poker supremacy in the United States. With 38 million residents, it is conservatively estimated that California residents would wager $300 million in an intrastate online poker network. This doesn’t count in the potential licensing fees and other financial considerations nor does it count any potential multi-state compacts. First, however, the state of California has to pass some form of online gaming regulations, a possibility that grows dimmer as the calendar clicks down.

See what else is making headlines in PocketFives’ California poker community.

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