Exclusive: Iowa bill to be introduced next week
Legislation drawn up with assistance of US Digital Gaming, that would provide a gaming platform in the state.
A fresh online gaming bill is due to be introduced into the Hawkeye State’s legislature next week by State Senator Jeff Danielson, eGaming Review has learned.
Drawn up following discussions with US Digital Gaming (USDG), the bill would see the American company provide a platform for a regulated egaming environment in the state.
USDG was one of two potential operators named in December’s report into egaming regulation in Iowa, and has been selected by Senator Danielson to help draw up the bill after its involvement in similar prospective legislation in Hawaii.
Jon Richmond, CEO of USDG, told eGR: “We’ve had people on the ground in Iowa helping to draft the bill and working with Jeff Danielson… this is a good example of the grass roots effort that needs to go on [for state-by-state legislation to progress].”
“Still, that doesn’t mean in a couple of months time we’ll be able to go to Des Moines, log onto a computer and start playing “ it’s far more complex than that, as you well know,” added Richmond.
Online poker elements were stripped out of Iowa’s gambling legislation last April, with the state’s Senate Ways and Means Committee requiring the extensive study which brought about December’s report.
Richmond suggested that it was not worth reading too much into this week’s vote by a council committee in the District of Columbia to repeal the jurisdiction’s egaming legislation, describing DC as “a whole different animal with different processes, and therefore a bit of an anomaly.”
He also understood the decision of Utah Congressman Stephen Sandstrom to introduce an anti-gambling bill in the Beehive State, but was again keen to explain that this would have little, if any, bearing on the progress of intrastate legislation elsewhere.
“Certain states, whether for moral or other reasons, they have governments or representatives who are opposed to gambling and not just online gambling,” said Richmond.
“However, on a broader scale gaming (and not just egaming) in the US is no longer viewed as it was historically. If you look back to when it was legalised in Nevada in the 1930s it didn’t show up anywhere else for something like another 40 years (if you exclude horse racing) “ the mentality of the US populace has changed dramatically,” he added.
Other states with egaming bills, either active or in the pipeline, include Nevada, California and New Jersey, with Fertitta Interactive becoming the latest operator to apply for a licence in the former.
Richmond suggested that: “Once the process has moved forward in NV people will take comfort in the regulations that have been made. It might not be the first to go live though, and other states will at least be hot on the heels of Nevada and listen to what they’re doing there.”