News

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 11:53

In its drive to corner exclusive rights to online poker played in California, the Morongo Band of Mission Indians and 21 other tribes have joined forces.

The Morongo have tried this before in regard to attempting to take exclusive rights to online poker when they joined with commercial card rooms located in the state in a bid to corner the market, if California legalises this form of online gambling. They have also bee active in opposing Congressional attempts to legalise and control at federal level all forms of online gambling, due to its belief that this would constitute a threat to the aspirations of the tribe.

The new consortium headed by the Morongo Tribe has called itself the California Intertribal Intrastate Poker Consortium. It will form one of two new LLC's that intend to be members of COPA, (California Online Poker Association). The COPA initiative gaining success primarily depends on the California Legislature approving legalisation that will regulate intrastate online poker. Similar issues have been debated in the state in various forms over recent years.

Senator Rod Wright's latest initiative to get online poker legalised in California, is currently kicking its heels in limbo. In March 2010, L.A. Democrat Wright put forward his Internet poker bill, which raised industry hopes as Wright chairs the Senate Governmental Organization Committee. The committee is key in regulating all forms of online gaming in California. Unfortunately, SB 1485 was stalled and in June, Wright cancelled his Bill's hearing before his own committee. There has been no movement on the Bill since.

Apparently, the Morongo have been in negotiations on the state of SB 1485 with Wright. The tribe is talking with Wright’s staff with the intention of leading the drive forward if legalisation in California comes about. However, there could be some serious opposition coming from the CTBA (California Tribal Business Alliance). David Qunitana, who is a lobbyist acting for the CTBA, said that they opposed any deal involving online poker that would give an exclusive franchise over to a single group. He said that it would be in violation of existing deals that casino gaming tribes have with the state.