Can You Gamble In Hawaii

For instance, if you win a thousand bucks in Vegas but then lose half that back to the casino, you would only have to pay Hawaii taxes on 500 bucks. This is actually a return to the way things. Of all the States, only Hawaii and Utah have such comprehensive anti-gambling legislation. In the Island State, only social poker games where nobody makes a profit (not even from selling beverages) are allowed. That is it, no casinos, no charity gambling, no lottery and no sports. Gambling is illegal in the state of Hawaii. There are no exceptions to this law at the moment, and the ban includes all forms of casino games, sports betting, lotteries, poker and fantasy sports. You will see that poker itself is legal within the state, but no bets are allowed to be placed on the outcome, and the game must not be played for money.

• Can You Gamble On Cruise Ships In Hawaii
• Where Can You Gamble In Hawaii
• Can You Gamble In Hawaii

Hawaii may not have been swept up in the online poker boom like some states, but there are still tens of thousands of Hawaiians who have tried their luck at online poker in Hawaii. Even today, Hawaii and online poker continue to be a great match, with hundreds of new players signing on to play cash games and tournaments online.

If you have questions about how to join them, read on for more about online poker and the law in Hawaii, how gambling is approach by the government in Hawaii and an index of credible resources that will help you learn all you ever wanted to know about Hawaii and where to play online poker.

Establishing a State Lottery

In 2016 alone, 15 gaming bills were proposed in the Hawaii State Legislature. Most of the bills pass their first reading and one is still being considered. Three of these bills (HB 1830, HB 2536, and SB 2626) involved legalization of a state lottery.

Fantasy Sports Bills

Three bills (HB 2111, SB 2429, and B2722) involve fantasy sports in Hawaii. Of these, two of the bill seek to make fantasy sports illegal in Hawaii. A third bill would regulate the DFS industry. Ironically, the same senator sponsored a bill to ban fantasy sports and regulate it: Democrat Gilbert Keith-Agaran.

Hawaii State Horse Racing Board

SB 1373 would establish a PILOT for horse racing in Hawaii, while establishing a State Horse Racing Board. The seven senators who sponsored the bill were Donovan Dela Cruz, Brickwood Galuteria, Kaiali’i Kahele, Michelle Kidani, Clarence Nishihara, Maile Shimabukuro, and Gilbert Keith-Agaran. In a 25-member senate, a bill sponsored by 7 members has a pretty good chance of passing.

Slot Machines in Airports

HR 71, sponsored by Cindy Evans, would legalize “amusement concessions” in airports. Essentially, slot machines would be placed in Hawaii’s airports, which would target tourists and business travelers from out-of-state. Most gamblers know that airport slots have the worst odds of all. Terminals have such a high turnover of customers; you don’t really need to build a loyal customer base.

If HR 71 passed, the revenues generated would go into the airport revenue fund. Representative Evans’s bill was carried over from the 2015 legislative session, but it did not appear to have received enough support to go to the floor of the house.

Most of the remaining bills had to do with tax relief on winnings in out-of-state venues and nuisance abatements on gambling offenses. While there seemed to be plenty of activity from lawmakers on the gambling-related subjects, few of the proposals seemed close to passing. Hawaii remains, alongside Utah, one of only two states with a 100% ban on gambling.

Illegal Card Games, Sports Bets, and Cockfighting

Illegal gambling is another matter. Roman Kalinowski, the senior staff writers for the Ka Leo Hawai’i, the campus newspaper for the University of Hawai’i Manoa, wrote in 2015 that “cockfighting, sports betting, video gambling machines and backroom card games are available to locals and tourists willing to track them down.”

Mr. Kalinowski’s assertion was in an opinion piece, but a look through old stories on Legal US Poker Sites gives an indication the student writer is right. A number of illegal gambling rings have been busted in the past 3 years, and some of those rings have been for tens of millions of dollars of cash. Those gaming rings involved sophisticated online betting tools, as well.

Sumner LaCroix, an economics professor at University of Hawai’i at Manoa, said that the prohibition has led to a significant underground economy. Estimates range that underground gaming in Hawaii might involve $700 million to $7 billion of action per year, or between 1% and 10% of Hawaii’s GDP.

As recently as 2014, the Director of Research for Gambling Compliance, Chris Krafcik, predicted Hawaii’s legislature would consider legalizing online gambling. Nothing happened in 2014, but experts continue to believe Hawaii might one day legalize some forms of gambling. Hawaiian residents most often mention a state lottery as a starting place.

Playing Online Poker in Hawaii

When we say legal poker sites in HI, we’re referring to sites with a proper license issued by a qualified regulatory body. If you play on other sites, you’re risking your bankroll. That’s why we only list legit poker rooms in our picks for Hawaiian poker sites, and then we dwindle that group to include just the top rooms with the best bonuses and promotions. The result is the list below

What Sites Take Poker Players From Hawaii Online?

You can play on almost all online poker rooms in Hawaii. This does not include rooms that don’t accept any players from the US, but all poker sites that let American players participate in real money games also take players from Hawaii. Players from states like New York and Washington aren’t as fortunate, as they face sign up restrictions at most sites, but poker players from Hawaii are welcome at rooms across the net.

Online Poker Law for Hawaii

With no case law concerning online poker or any record of arrests related to playing online poker, it’s difficult to reach a final conclusion on the legality of online poker in Hawaii. If you’re playing online poker in Hawaii and want to understand how state law might impact you, we’ve developed this brief overview of the most important parts for online poker players.
Note: Players should always seek professional legal help for anything other than casual questions regarding the law.

Hawaiian law takes a simple and clear position on gambling: None is legal in the state. As a result, the definition of gambling employed in state becomes very important.

The definition of gambling (Section 712-1220(1)) is a pretty standard one and involves any bet of something of value upon what the law calls a “contest of chance.”

Some might argue that poker is not a contest of chance, and that may well be true in the general sense. Hawaiian law, however, has a specific definition of contest of chance that appears to encompass poker:

“any contest, game, gaming scheme, or gaming device in which the outcome depends in a material degree upon an element of chance, notwithstanding that skill of the contestants may also be a factor therein” (Section 712-1220(3))

Engaging in gambling (as defined by Hawaiian law) is a misdemeanour offence (Section 712-1223).

Social gambling (and home poker games) are legal (Section 712-1231), but only under very strict conditions that would seem to preclude online poker from finding shelter under the exemption.

Chances of Regulating Online Poker in Hawaii

As you probably have guessed by now, there’s little in Hawaii’s history that suggests the state is a likely candidate to regulate online poker. With such strict attitudes toward all types of gambling enshrined in the law, a bill that regulated online poker in Hawaii would face substantial hurdles.

That’s unfortunate, because we believe that a local influence in regulation is key to developing online poker rooms that customers can trust and enjoy. Despite the obvious advantages of regulating online poker, it seems as if the Hawaiian government simply doesn’t have an interest in providing residents with a locally licensed and clearly legal online poker option.

Quick Background for Hawaiian Gambling

Gambling seems popular in Hawaii. Many of the news articles discussing Hawaii and gambling claim that Las Vegas is known as the “ninth island” of Hawaii. We can’t speak directly to the truth of that claim, but it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch for a region with such strong gambling roots.

For example, horse racing was once the dominant form of entertainment among the Hawaiian elite. In fact, nearly a dozen race tracks called Hawaii home during the late 1800s and early 1900s. That trend died out in the 1950s, and with it went the last remnants of regulated gambling in Hawaii. Today, Hawaii is one of just two US states (along with Utah) that offer absolutely no regulated gambling.

Hawaii’s Regulated Gambling Industry

As Hawaii does not have any regulated gambling, there’s little to say on this score.

Hawaii’s Regulated Online Gambling Industry

Online gambling is also not regulated in any way by the government of Hawaii. The state did take some steps toward passing an online gambling bill in 2010, but that effort stalled and the prospects for regulated online gambling in Hawaii within the next few years seem slim at best.

All Poker and Gambling Laws by State

• September 30th, 2017

  There are only two states out of the 50 in America with no legalized gambling: Utah and Hawaii. The former has a deeply religious population and happily maintains its exception from the gambling culture of the United States. Hawaii, however, has abstained from joining the industry because of the precarious

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• When a construction worker at a Saipanese casino development died on site in late March, U.S. investigators raided the construction company’s headquarters. In the documents the FBI agents confiscated, they found evidence that hundreds of undocumented Chinese workers were a part of the project. In late April, U.S. prosectors filed

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Useful Sites for Hawaii Gambling Research

FindLaw: Hawaiian Gambling Law Overview – Guide to the basics of Hawaiian gambling law along with links to legal synopsis to all 50 states (not poker-specific).

History of Hawaiian Horse Racing – An in-depth look at the legal, social and cultural history of horse racing in Hawaii. Covers recent legislative attempts to bring legal betting to the state’s tracks.

Gambling in Hawaii and Utah – Scholarly paper from the Gaming Law Review and Economics journal. Covers the history and development of gambling in the only two states (Hawaii and Utah) that have no forms of regulated gambling whatsoever.

Hawaii’s Role in Poker’s Development

Relatively isolated from the rest of the United States and lacking a develop gambling industry, Hawaii has played a minor role in the history of poker. The state produced no World Series of Poker champions in 2012, and no poker players of national note (that we could uncover) hail from Hawaii. The one link from the newest US state to one of the oldest US games: Wikipedia claims that “Hawaii” is a hand nickname for QJ – because if you play it too much, you’ll end up losing about what a vacation to the islands costs.

Sources & Citations For This Article on Hawaii Online Poker

Only two States in the US don’t allow for any kind of
organised gambling at all, and Hawaii is one of them. The other
state is Utah. This means you won’t find any casinos, race
tracks, or sports books in this island state. Naturally, this
also means no live poker rooms with Texas holdem, and definitely
no online poker.

Unlike some other states that turn a blind eye to the
lottery, you also can’t partake in national lotteries in Hawaii.
Because the state is sea locked, the old argument that’s been
used across the continental United States that you can drive an
hour or less into another state and gamble, and therefore your
home state misses out on tax revenue from gaming, won’t really
work here.

This is a real shame if you love playing Texas holdem poker,
as you’ll really have no good option to turn to.

Social Holdem

Thankfully there’s a somewhat faded silver lining, and that is you can host
a poker game and participate in social gambling, provided that
it isn’t conducted in a public space or establishment, such as a
hotel, motel, bar or nightclub.

With this in mind you should be able to find a lot of home
social games around most of the larger cities in Hawaii. If you
don’t have any friends that like poker, we suggest checking out
social meet up sites online to find social games. On top of this
you can always post in the 2+2 forum and see if you have any
luck there. This forum is a great place to find information
about poker.

Online Texas Holdem

If you love online poker then black Friday would have truly
chilled you to the core. On black Friday all legal online poker
was essentially shut down in the United States. You could play
online in Hawaii before this, but the fact remains that you’ll
probably have no chance of doing so again.

Some states have enacted their own legislation and allow for
territory restricted online poker rooms, but due to Hawaii’s
attitude towards gaming in general, this will most likely never
happen in this state. If you want to play online legally you
need to travel to a country that allows open online poker, or to
one of the states in the US that has state online poker rooms
available.

Usually we like to provide some advice on where to go nearby
when you can’t play poker in your home city or state. This is
somewhat more problematic in Hawaii as you’ll need to take a
plane, or very long boat ride, to be able to find a live poker
room. In many places that are located near the sea you can take
a boat or cruise out into international water to be able to play
poker.

Unfortunately this isn’t even an option in Hawaii due to
rules that cruise lines must adhere to in order to operate
around the islands. With this in mind, your best bet in respect
to playing Texas holdem poker out of Hawaii is jumping on a
plane to Las Vegas. You won’t be alone doing this as every year
a huge number of residents travel to Vegas from Hawaii in order
to get their gambling fill.

The plane flight from Honolulu to Las Vegas is around 6 hours
and will usually set you back about $350 each way, unless you
can get a special deal.

This isn’t too bad really and you’ll find many casinos in Las
Vegas cater to the Hawaiian visitors; most notably the
California Casino and Hotel downtown.

If you’re visiting Hawaii then you won’t be able to play any
poker on the trip. If you’re a resident of the continental
United States then consider visiting the Bahamas if you want
that tropical beach holiday and some holdem action on the same
trip.

Can You Gamble On Cruise Ships In Hawaii

Summary

Where Can You Gamble In Hawaii

Although we’ve been a little bit negative towards Hawaii and
their laws around gambling, in all honesty it’s probably not a
bad thing that they’ve outlawed it.

Can You Gamble In Hawaii

The place is truly beautiful and really is a nice getaway
destination to unwind, relax, and escape some the societal
pressures and issues that plague most cities and states in the
US. To this end, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that Texas
holdem poker and gambling isn’t allowed in Hawaii.