The state of Washington is joining the ever increasing amount of states that have turned to online gambling as a way to feed their greed and insatiable appetite for revenue. In January there were online poker and Daily Sports Fantasy bills that were submitted to get the state into the game legally after failure that took place one year ago when the idea failed to gain traction in the Washington State legislature.
Washington State Representative Sherry Appleton along with Vincent Buys introduced HB1114 which seeks to authorize and regulate real money online poker despite the fact that the state of Washington was one of the first states that went out of its way to specifically ban online gambling in the first place.
The reason that Appleton and Buys submitted the bill is that there is a strong grassroots groundswell of support for the legalization of online poker and Daily Fantasy Sports gambling in the state of Washington as citizens believe that the state is behind the times and ignoring reality while politicians cannot turn away from the huge windfall that would be expected from the full legalization of online gambling.
Right now the state of Washington has a punishing law that could potentially put a person in prison for up to five years with a $10,000 fine just for taking part in online gambling.
So far nobody has been prosecuted, which points to the lack of reality with the law and also perhaps a hopeful nod to this truly noble and realistic effort.
