A report that has been prepared by the Florida state legislature's Office of Program Policy & Government Analysis (OPPAGA) was scheduled to be delivered to the state Senate Regulated Industries Committee on January 19th 2010. The report is a review of the current regulations, considered as being both positive and bad of the online gambling industry. The need exemplified by the state of Florida to deal with its budget shortfalls has brought about this review by the above organization, which commenced its study last year.

The report contains what may be considered the advantages and disadvantages of the current regulatory status and was perused by the legislators in Florida's house of representatives. State officials at this point need to make the decision as to what are the priorities and whether to stay with the federal level regulations dealing with Internet gambling and gambling in general, which are at this point are being debated, or to move ahead on their own and proactively create their own rules for internet gambling and in particular the playing of poker over the web. Florida lawmakers have the realization that they should choose to ban all types of online gambling in the state, but the enforcement of such regulations becomes an issue of its own complexities and expenses. At the present time, people living in the United States are already gambling online so that playing poker over the web is a major past time of a significant number of Americans. The state of Florida would do quite well financially to at least let online poker be played legally in the state considering the amount of revenue that could be generated by regulating the games. It would definitely be of interest to see whether or not the review has come to any new conclusions with regard to the financial benefits of regulation other than those previously stated. The report states that presently no objective estimates exist that could be used to assess the potential state revenues that could be acquired. It is the estimation of the organization the Poker Voters of America that as much as $90 million a year could be received by the state from legalizing online poker. This subject is being debated in several areas of the country where many lawmakers have reached the realization that the money that goes into online gambling is being received by companies that operate offshore where there is no local benefit to be gained.

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