Want to Play Legal Online Poker in New York?
Unfortunately, it’s still not completely legal to gamble online in New York, however, for now, you can play at any one of the following best mobile poker apps to improve your skills and develop your own strategies.
If you don’t want to play poker for fun on your mobile, then just scroll down a bit where there’s a review you can read of the latest legal online gambling news for New York, specifically regarding online Poker.June 2017: Online poker is on lawmakers’ radar, will bills again coming from both Sen. John Bonacic and Assemblyman J Gary Pretlow.
In 2016, it appeared that a bid to legalize New York online poker via the state budget is not in the cards, but that does not imply that online poker legislation is dead for 2017.
The Senate included online poker in its version of the state budget. But it failed to appear in the Assembly version.
Assemblymember J. Gary Pretlow mentioned that online poker was not likely to make the cut in the State’s Budget. According to NY political reporter Andrew Whitman:
“The same dynamic was faced by the online poker legislation in 2015. The Senate included online poker in its budget, while the Assembly did not.”
What’s next for the online poker bill?
The apparent shutdown via the state budget turns attention to movement on standalone bills for online poker. Senate famously passed the poker bill 53-5 in 2016; yet it never saw a vote in the Assembly.
Reportedly, Pretlow told Online Poker Report that he would like to get it done in 2017, but that he still faces some opposition to iPoker legalization and regulation in his own chamber.
Despite the fact that optimism abounded for the prospects for another state legalizing online gambling this year, passing a bill is never easy.
The roll call of states looking at iGaming is not that positive:
- In Pennsylvania, things have become complicated. A bill to legalize video gaming terminals outside of casinos threatens to put iGaming on the sidelines.
- There are no talks in California as regards online poker.
- The legislation in West Virginia will likely have to wait.
- This year progress has been made by Michigan, but a bill’s prospects moving forward is murky.
Currently, New York might have the clearest path to the legalization of online poker.
NY Online Poker history
It was in 2013 that online poker was first broached as a potential funding source for the state’s budget. The idea never gained any traction.
The State introduced a bill seeking to legalize online poker, S 6913 in March of 2014, Sen. John Bonacic, who would become online poker’s biggest cheerleader in New York in the years to come. Several months later, Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow introduced a similar online poker bill in the State Assembly in the month of July 2014.
Bonacic called his 2014 bill a conversation starter when he recognized the mood in the legislature, and stated that he never intended to make a serious push for online poker expansion in 2014.
The attitude voiced by several key politicians that online legislation needed to wait until the state completed its current gaming expansion project, four new brick & mortar casinos was the biggest hurdle online poker had to overcome in the New York legislature.
Bonacic reintroduced his online poker bill, S 5302 in May of 2015. But, once again the legislature didn’t act on it and entering 2016, online poker had never even warranted a hearing.
Real progress was seen in online poker during the last year.
It started off with some forward momentum via committee hearings. Then, Bonacic managed to get his iPoker bill through the Senate with a lopsided vote of 53-5 late in the legislative session.
However, Pretlow said the issue didn’t have support in his chamber, and the bill died on the vine. In the wake of that, Pretlow cited a variety of concerns, including whether poker is a “game of skill” and the issues of security and cheating at sites.
The New York government legalized and regulated daily fantasy sports in 2016.