Florida's Poker Laws do restrict the game to a degree but there are more than enough exceptions for the game to continue to survive. Home games, casinos, and online poker are all allowed in one way or another. With only a few specific rules, Florida is actually a pretty poker-friendly state. 301 Moved Permanently. The document has been permanently moved. Nov 06, 2019 Florida Online Poker Law. Florida has exploded as a poker state in recent years, thanks to its officials agreeing to allow its card rooms to spread no-limit games. It was a long road to full no-limit games; Florida poker restrictions used to be so strict that at one time poker pots were limited to.
Online Poker In Florida
Florida Online Poker Law
Florida has exploded as a poker state in recent years, thanks to its officials agreeing to allow its card rooms to spread no-limit games. It was a long road to full no-limit games; Florida poker restrictions used to be so strict that at one time poker pots were limited to no more than $10. (You read that right: pots were limited to $10 before hands were turned up and played out.)
With enough players to support more than 20 poker rooms, Florida’s online poker market is one of the great untapped markets in the world. Its residents want access to online poker rooms, but the states elected officials don’t seem to be listening.
There are no bills proposed or even being publicly discussed by elected officials that focus on online poker or gaming. Online poker is simply not on the radar. Online poker players in Florida should thank their lucky stars they have so many places to play live poker.
In fact, Florida has gone the opposite way. Elected officials identified the proliferation of Internet cafes, where something like an electric sweepstakes lottery would take place, as a problem. Officials voted to close the loophole that allowed the cafes, making it illegal for wagered money be transferred between machines. This is something that will have to be addressed if online poker does move forward in Florida.
This also had the unintentional effect of forcing the subscription-based poker site ClubWPT to leave Florida. To be sure, Florida has a long way to go catching up in the world of online gaming.
If and when online poker moves forward in Florida, it will be powered by the several Indian Nations that operate brick-and-mortar casinos there. The Seminole Nation, which operates six casinos and card rooms in Florida, looks to be a big player.
It may come down to a federal judge’s ruling that tribal casinos are exempt from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, or a state bill acquiescing to the major lobbying that will surely come from the state’s casinos. Another potential “in” for the online gaming industry is if the company running the state’s lottery tries to get in the game. Like other states with so many factions interested in the millions of dollars that will come from online poker, it’s hard to say just how it will happen.
Will Online Poker Come to Florida?
Yes, but it’s going to be a while. The state is being led by a conservative, image-conscious governor with a recent history of stopping gambling expansion in his state, so it’s going to take some significant work by the state’s Tribal Nations and racinos. It will be a miracle if online poker is available to Florida residents by 2016.
How Many People Would Play Online Poker in Florida?
The home to more than 11 million people over the age of 21, that means an estimated potential 1.1 million online poker players live in Florida. It’s the fourth-largest poker market in the United States, falling just behind New York. This makes Florida’s poker market a huge “get” for those who make online poker work there. Its player pool will be large enough to support a healthy online poker community, but the residents of whichever state manages to share its players will ultimately win. But, again, that’s thinking far into the future.
One day, Florida ... one day.
Recent Action
Recent Reviews
Are we missing something?
Considering the girth of the United States of America, there aren’t a whole lot of things going on at present in regards to online poker regulation on a state by state basis. Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware have passed laws to legalize and regulate the industry within their borders, a few other states have pending legislation on the matter, but the majority of the US is sitting idle on the topic for now. In contrast, legislators in Florida have been very busy incorporating laws directed at online poker and internet gaming in general, but not for the better.
In April of 2013, the Florida Senate passed a bill to ban internet cafes after a huge scandal that involved the Allied Veterans of the World, an organization responsible for running 49 of the state’s internet cafes. It was discovered that the group had ‘misappropriated’ $300 million through online gambling activities in their cafes; funds that should have been dispersed to veterans’ charities, not syphoned into the bank accounts of the owners of the organization. With that in mind, the bill SB 1030 – designed to ban internet cafes in Florida – made an expedient run through Senate and landed on the governor’s desk, where it was signed into effect just one week later.
Legality of Online Poker Florida
What happened next was a colossal domino effect wherein the end result was the absolute prohibition of online poker, gambling or anything else involving gaming over the internet, and then some. The language of the bill, officially enacted as HB 155, was so ambiguously written that it didn’t just ban internet cafes. It criminalized online sweepstakes, bingo, poker, casino amusements and any other gaming activity that can be conducted electronically via the world wide web. For a brief period, it actually banned the use of all devices capable of accessing such games – including mobile phones and laptop computers, but law makers were quick to reverse that blunder with a few necessary amendments.
Let’s take a closer look at the verbiage of Florida’s new online poker laws to get a better idea of how the state handles such matters. We’ll also look into any potential for future regulation that may exist in the Sunshine State.
Florida Statues – Prohibition of Electronic Gambling Devices
The following text is taken directly from the ‘corrected copy’ of CS/HB 155. Note that some verbose text was eliminated to improve fluency, without alleviating the meaning.
Section 4. Section 849.16, Florida Statutes, is amended to read:
849.16 Machines or devices which come within provisions of law defined.—
(1) As used in this chapter, the term “slot machine or device” means any machine or device or system or network of devices that is adapted for use in such a way that, upon activation, which may be achieved by, but is not limited to, the insertion of any piece of money, coin, account number, code, or other object or information, such device or system is directly or indirectly caused to operate or may be operated and if the user, whether by application of skill or by reason of any element of chance or any other outcome unpredictable by the user, may:
(a) Receive or become entitled to receive any… thing of value, or… which may be exchanged for any… thing of value or which may be given in trade…
Poker Rules Chart
This next citation is an excerpt from the original, long-standing Florida Statues that prohibit specific forms of gambling, including the amended online gaming law listed above:
849.08 Gambling.–
Whoever plays or engages in any game at cards, keno, roulette, faro or other game of chance, at any place, by any device whatever, for money or other thing of value, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree…
Note that poker games are only legal if played in a state licensed gaming facility; or in a “dwelling” if they fall under the guidelines of a “Penny-ante game”, wherein the pot for a single hand never exceeds a maximum of $10 (ref. Florida Statutes 849.085).
There is plenty more reading available on the state’s online poker laws, but those provided above should be sufficient in defining the legalities of online poker in Florida. If you’d like to read them in full, please use the links above.
What does it all mean? Is online poker illegal in Florida?
Florida’s definition of gambling clearly aims at criminalizing games of chance in general, but the amendments of HB 155 extend the law’s reach to outlaw games of skill as well. Thus whether the state of Florida defines poker as a game of chance or skill is of no consequence. Gambling if any kind over any electronic device that accesses the internet is strictly prohibited in the Sunshine State.
Is Florida working to regulate online poker?
Unfortunately, the state of Florida is in such an uproar over the enactment of anti-internet gambling laws that regulation and legalization of online poker doesn’t look to be on the Senate’s docket for quite some time. In their favor is the simple fact that poker is such a wide-spread activity in the Sunshine State, at least throughout licensed, land-based card rooms. There are multiple major poker events taking place in Florida each year, including WSOP Circuit events and WPT tournaments.
In the past, legislative attempts have been made to regulate online poker in Florida. In 2010, Rep. Joseph Abruzzo introduced HB 1441, Internet Poker Consumer Protection and Revenue Generation Act of 2010. This piece of legislation would have legalized online poker on an intrastate level, but after landing on the laps of the Business & Financial Affair Policy Committee in March of that year, it was never voiced, much less signed and passed on to the next committee for review.