Drudge Report: Internet Poker The Answer To California’s Economic Woes?

Poker made headlines on the Drudge Report early Friday with an NBC San Francisco story on how Internet poker could help California’s massive $25 billion budget shortfall.

A group of California casinos say they could raise about $1 billion over the next decade if the state legalized Internet poker, according to that station.

"This could be part of a solution to California’s budget woes," said Ryan Hightower, a spokesman for the association, which is sponsoring SB 40, a bill by Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana).

The Poker Voters of America are working with their third California elected official on this matter.  Representative Roderick Wright had sponsored a previous bill this past year but ended up indicted. 

Just this week, the New Jersey assembly passed a bill that would that state the first to legalize Internet gambling in the US including online poker.  All that is left is for Governor Chris Christie to sign the bill into law.  Those supporting such legislation believe that legalized Web gambling will infuse billions of dollars into the state’s troubled economy.

California, which has the eighth largest economy in the world, is in even deeper economic despair than New Jersey.

Just this week, California’s newly elected Governor Jerry Brown disconnected 48,000 state-funded cell phones, which he claims will save the state some $20 million.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com