by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Jan 19, 2012 | Updated on Jan 19, 2012Last Spring, in the wake of Black Friday, Iowa was one of the many states that was supposed to begin forming the guidelines for an intrastate online poker network. After some effort it was evident that there was too much in the way for anything substantial to happen. Now, Iowa has decided to take another crack at it.Senator Jeff Danielson is behind the operation in Iowa and has recently told news sources that a bill is currently being drafted that could be released into the Iowan state government very shortly. This is another response to the US Department of Justice clarifying that the 1961 Wire Act applies solely to sports betting and that poker seems to be legal and in the clear.Danielson, in a statement to the Des Moines Register, said, “We believe that because of the Department of Justice ruling, we can now have a multi-state compact. One major concern proponents of online poker have with regards to states legalizing the game within their own borders is that the player pool will be extremely fragmented and only a handful of states, such as California, would have a large enough poker playing population to adequately fill the virtual tables. If states collaborate on a multi-state player pool like we have seen in the lottery with games such as Powerball and Mega Millions, both player pool and resulting revenue should be much more significant.”Officials and experts in Iowa claim that intrastate online poker in the state could bring in as much as $13 million in additional tax revenue every year. The state may be different, but the story is the same, legalized online poker in the United States will offer many more benefits than the opposition can see. While we are getting closer to legal play in the US, it is still far off in the distance.Currently not many poker sites online allow US players but below we have listed three such sites that still allow US players.
