The state of Washington might decriminalize online poker this year

The state of Washington and its legislation against online poker made the game punishable by prison sentences and fines up to $10,000. These are radical and drastic measures have not brought any peace to gamblers as they feel like the state is criminalizing an online form of entertainment. Washington’s poker prohibition reminds us the liquor prohibition during the 1920s in the whole country, something that only created strong mafia gangs and political corruption in every single stage; despite this war against the online gaming industry, Washington lawmakers are trying to create a market frame for one of the most profitable industries in the whole world.

Monday last week, Representative Sherry Appleton, introduced the House Bill 1114 into the legislature. The gaming industry in Washington is being controlled by the political corruption that has granted privileges to just a few card rooms and tribal casinos. The controversial case from 2014 made very clear that Washington politics were just playing another kind of game when the state decided to shut down a penny-ante pinochle game that had been established at a senior center for 25 years. Washington lawmakers are trying to get rid of obsolete laws that are only blocking the development of the online gambling industry, preventing these companies from creating new job as well as slowing down Washington’s economy. House Bill 1114, however, is going to work online on online poker rooms: “The legislature finds that the internet is an integral tool in the everyday lives of Washingtonians,” the bill reads. “Commerce, communication, and entertainment are just some of the areas in which this technological aid thrives.

Poker has long been an authorized activity in Washington State, and with the internet as a technological aid, poker can be conducted in a virtual environment and played from the privacy of one’s own computer or mobile device. Despite a lack of regulation due to prohibition, playing poker over the internet remains popular with Washington state players. To better protect the people of Washington from potential danger from, and to maintain oversight of the systems used to carry out internet poker, the legislature finds it to be in the interest of the people to establish a regulatory framework by which entities, as authorized by the Washington state gambling commission or a tribal regulator, may offer poker games to players within Washington state over the internet”.