by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Jun 14, 2012 | Updated on Jun 14, 2012It seems like a daily routine now: another day, another state in the USA trying to regulate online poker. But unlike many of the stories we’ve talked about, this one isn’t about a bill dying or being pushed to the sidelines. The Delaware House of Representatives passed an online gambling bill Tuesday evening, moving the legislation one big step towards being enacted into law.The bill passed quite easily, with 29 representatives voting for it and just eight voting against it. The vote came after two amendments changed some of the particulars of the law earlier in the week.The bill is known as the Delaware Gaming Competitiveness Act of 2012. In the bill, Internet gambling would be put under the control of the Delaware Lottery. The bill would allow the Delaware Lottery to provide online versions of most games allowed at Delaware’s land-based casinos, including online poker and other table games. The bill does not mention online slots, however. In addition, the Delaware Lottery would be allowed to offer video lottery games – essentially, virtual versions of their traditional lottery games.What makes this bill particularly interesting is the fact that it isn’t solely intended as an intrastate online gambling bill. While Delaware would initially be running a site for their own citizens, the player pool is likely to be rather small for poker, as only about 900,000 people live in the state. However, Delaware is reportedly seeking compacts with states such as West Virginia and Rhode Island in order to share player pools for their online poker games, which would help make a site more viable.Proponents of the bill are pushing online gambling as a way to keep Delaware competitive in the regional gambling scene – a claim that has made its way into the name of the bill itself. The northeastern United States has seen an explosion in land-based gambling over the last 20 years; while the region was once dominated by Atlantic City, recent years have seen a number of casinos built in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, with more planned in Maine and Massachusetts.
