Nick Miccarelli has become the second Pennsylvania State Representative to introduce an online gaming bill in the US state this year.
As reported by iGaming Business last week, John Payne put forward a bill that would legalise various online gaming activities in Pennsylvania.
Despite having some similarities to Payne’s bill, the new HB 695 bill introduced by Miccarelli would only seek to legalise online poker in the state.
“Poker is unlike banking games in many respects that make it best for the introduction of interactive gaming,” Miccarelli said in his memorandum on the bill.
“Poker operators are not participants in the games and are indifferent as to the outcome.”
Under HB 695, iGaming licences would be made exclusively available to current gaming licensees in the state.
An initial licensing fee would be set at $5 million (€4.5 million) while operators would be required to pay a 14% tax on gross gaming revenue.
Unlike Payne’s bill, Miccarelli’s will include a so-called bad actor clause that would stop operators that accepted online gaming wagers in the US after December 31, 2006, from acquiring a licence – unless they were under a federal or state licence at the time in question.
The bill would seemingly end any hope of PokerStars being allowed to launch a service in the state, despite its recent purchase by Amaya Gaming.
The bill prohibits operators that have been “purchased or acquired, directly or indirectly, in whole or in significant part, a third-party…or will use that third-party or a covered asset in connection with interactive gaming.”
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
