New York State Senate Factors Revenue from Online Poker into Draft Budget Plan

The New York State Senate has included revenue from legalized, regulated online poker in its 2017-18 budget plan. But before you ny poker players break out the ticker tape start dancing, a few caveats.
All eyes is going to be on Gary Pretlow this year, while the New York State Assemblyman has insisted he will toss his weight behind online poker in the lower chamber.
First, online poker was also within the very first draft associated with Senate’s 2016-17 budget and yet regulation would not happen. It was left out of the final version.
And second, neither the House nor Governor Andrew Cuomo has made room for on-line poker regulation in their own personal budget plans.
The step that is next then, lies in the Senate persuading the House in the future on board with their plan, or at least the online poker part from it. Whether the homely House is willing and able is truly anyone’s guess.
Poker in the home
Senator John Bonacic’s online poker bill sailed through the Senate last year, passed by an emphatic margin of 53 to 5. But Bonacic’s counterpart in the lower chamber, Representative Gary Pretlow, dragged his heels, grumbling about it being a ‘1000-1 shot’ and, at one point, also questioned whether poker had been a game of ability at all.
It had been an astonishing statement since certainly one of the principle aims of the bill he was sponsoring would be to reclassify poker as a game of skill.
The