With Floridas pot expected to be light about $6 billion next year, backers of online gaming say the state could have an ace in the hole that would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars if the state has the guts to play it.
Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, said Thursday hell refile legislation for 2011 that would legalize, regulate, and tax online poker and other gambling in an effort to get the state a new revenue source before the federal government beats Florida to it.
Abruzzo filed a similar bill earlier this year, but it never had a committee hearing in the 2010 session. But with stimulus money going away and the states projected budget deficit thought to be around $6 billion, the $200 million a year he says the proposal could produce would be like having three queens and a wild card.
The cards are all aligned, Abruzzo said.
House staff estimated earlier this year that U.S. residents bet just under $6 billion on international gaming websites, and Abruzzo said that checking the IP addresses of the players, it appears there are over a million Internet poker players in Florida.
By allowing Internet gaming companies to set up shop in Florida they could be licensed and charged for that license, and then taxed. Last years legislation would have included a $500,000 license fee and a 20 percent gross receipts tax.
The companies would only be allowed to accept players in Florida. Abruzzo said the technology exists to cut off anyone who so much as steps a toe across a state line, and also to help avoid problem gambling.
If they gamble too much, it shuts them out, Abruzzo said. Were actually regulating not letting people go overboard.
It also would give the state the ability to regulate the online gaming providers. Currently, people who go online to play Internet poker in Florida are going to unregulated, usually offshore sites.
Those companies could clear out somebodys account and they would have no legal resource, Abruzzo said.
The federal government has prosecuted some types of online betting under The Wire Act, but it specifically excludes intrastate gaming, such as Abruzzo envisions, from the definition of unlawful Internet gambling.
Live poker is authorized in more than 20 licensed cardrooms at pari-mutuel facilities around the state. This past year, the tracks that run the cardrooms didnt fight Abruzzos bill though since it didnt go very far they didnt have to. And they were preoccupied with the Seminole gaming compact that lawmakers approved this past spring.
Perhaps the most unexpected opponent of the legislation: online poker players. More specifically it is opposed by the organization that represents the more than 1 million online poker players around the country, which is pushing for the federal government to legalize and regulate online gaming, rather than having a few states allow it on an in-state only basis.
We think a federal approach is better, said Teresa Schofield, spokeswoman for the Poker Players Alliance, the grass-roots advocacy group representing players.
The reason is that if Florida were to only allow online players to play against other players in Florida, the amount of money they could win would be smaller because the pots would only include Florida players. Another advantage to online games is normally the large choice of who you play against, with different skill levels for example, Schofield said. In-state only games would reduce that choice.
Florida is also playing against the house -- the U.S. House.
While Florida -- and also now California -- are considering state-only laws, a measure is moving in Congress that would have the same federal oversight that the Poker Players Alliance wants to see. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is pushing a bill to legalize it nationally.
If the federal government passes this, and we dont, theyll come in here and take the bulk of the money, Abruzzo said.
But with the state looking at trying to figure out how to plug a $6 billion budget hole, creative responses will be necessary if lawmakers are to avoid difficult cuts that will be fought by various constituencies for the spending. Raising the rate of existing taxes is a virtual nonstarter in the Republican-led Legislature, especially in a down economy. New taxes are usually also off the table before the game even starts, though in recent years lawmakers have increased fees and enacted a new cigarette surcharge.
The first state that does (intrastate Internet poker) is going to get 100 (online gaming companies) right away, because it would be the first time its legal in the U.S., said David Pleat, a Democratic candidate for the state House, who is challenging Rep. Marti Coley, R-Marianna in District 7. In response to a question this week on how he would propose to cut into the deficit if elected, Pleat raised the gaming issue, even though he is running in a fairly socially conservative Panhandle district.
Its not terribly popular to talk about gaming, Pleat said. But when theres money to be raked in, youve got to.
