California Petition Scantioned local Secratary

The San Diego Secretary of State's Office announced that it had chosen to give Anthony ‘Tuff Fish' Sandstrom the approval to circulate a petition, Should the petition receive more than 430 thousand signatures by the end of December, an initiative would be placed on the ballot in 2008 asking voters if they would like to have a State-Operated Online Poker Room.

The proposal is an endeavor by Sandstrom to see the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) overturned. If this is successful, and the voters pass the measure, the State of California would be forced to defend the online gambling in Federal Court. The challenge would prove worth the efforts being invested to gain the necessary attention and signatures.

'It's silly for the State not to get into the business,' said I. Nelson Rose, a nationally recognized gambling authority, professor and attorney at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, California. 'Billions of dollars are being spent on the game here and the State isn't getting one penny.' That observation would not be including any currently illegal online gambling activity, potentially a great deal of undiscovered revenue.

The proposal would in addition sanction some Native American casinos as well as other gambling institutions to set up revenue-sharing arrangements. This would provide an incentive to affluent tribes to collect supporter signatures required to put the measure on the February election ballot. 'We will take a look at the initiative and discuss it,' said Garry South, a professional consultant to the California Tribal Business Alliance, made up of the tribes who own the biggest casinos in the State.