While Nevada and New Jersey dominate the legal online poker headlines, two more states are considering online poker legislation while two others which such legislation pending turn it down. New York and Texas are the next two states considering saying Yes to legal online poker while Hawaii and Iowa have just said No.
In New York, the Senate Majority Coalition of the state senate added to its 2013-14 budget proposal, co-signed by state senators Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein, a resolution in support of state-authorized intrastate online poker.
In Texas, legislators in that state have already introduced a consitutional amendment to introduce state-authorized online poker, but only if it is regulated according to federal law. Author of the proposal, which would require Texas to enroll automatically in a federal opt-in program permitting legal online poker if federal law ever allows such a thing, is state senator Leticia Van de Putte
Meanwhile, the online poker fight is not doing so well in two other states: Hawaii and Iowa, both of which have let legal intrastate online poker bills fold. In Iowa an online poker measure that got preliminary approval by a full-Senate subcommittee two weeks prior has since failed to clear that committee.
In Hawaii, a bill that cleared the state’s Judicial Committee and its Economic Revitalization and Business Committee was not successful in getting a hearing from the House Financial Committee of the state, with a lack of support from Republicans and Democrats alike cited by local news outlets as the cause of the failure.