Like many others before him, Jason Somerville came to the capital last week to beseech state government to eliminate an onerous regulation that is keeping him from doing business in California.

Somerville, 28, is a Nevada entrepreneur who operates a sole proprietorship that has generated $3.9 million in revenues over the past several years. Most folks might not call him a businessman, however; they would describe him simply as a professional poker player.

Somerville wants to see California legalize intrastate online poker, an action that would exempt the state from a federal regulation that prevents him from conducting business in most of the United States.

If that were to happen, this young entrepreneur says he'd spend eight months a year doing business in California.

With the on-again, off-again negotiations to legalize online poker heating up again this year in the Legislature, one of Somerville's sponsors, the international firm PokerStars, brought him to Sacramento last week to demonstrate how the enterprise works.

Somerville and fellow pro Daniel Negreanu — an even bigger name, as the biggest live tournament poker winner of all time — brought some star power to the promotion effort. Even the most casual TV channel-surfer would likely recognize Negreanu, a star of televised poker tournaments and the owner of six World Series of Poker bracelets. Somerville has won a single bracelet.

As with many of the millennial generation, Somerville was drawn to poker while he was still in high school, during what he views as the good old days when online poker was legal in the United States, before Congress approved the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

He remembers that day in 2006 as a Boston Red Sox fan might remember the October day in 1986 when Billy Buckner allowed that slow ground ball to trickle through his legs in Game 6 of the World Series.

It still makes him angry. He rants that it is illogical and unfair that e-poker is banned in a country where anyone can log onto the Internet and place a bet on any horse race, and where residents of many states can play state lottery games online.

Somerville notes that there are offshore sites that offer online poker, but they provide no consumer protections — no regulations that ensure games are fair, and no guarantee that players who deposit money will be able to collect their winnings or even get their deposits back.

He says he personally lost $100,000 that he had on deposit when the Curacao-based online site Lock Poker shut down last month, leaving all its American customers high and dry.

The federal act expressly allows individual states to approve Internet gaming within their borders, and so far New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada have chosen that option.

But in the world of e-poker, California, with its 38.7 million residents, is the Big Kahuna. Because of its size, it would provide the essential element the industry says is needed for success — something those in the business call "liquidity." It means there would be enough people wanting to play different types of games for different table stakes at any hour of the day to make the system work.

Lee Jones, director of communications for PokerStars, told legislators, legislative staff members and reporters attending last week's demonstration that tens of thousands of state residents are already playing online poker on illegal offshore sites. "Californians," he said, "don't have the option to play in a regulated environment."

Using sophisticated technology that has been developed for other applications, Jones said, online poker operators can assure that all players are over 18 and are playing on a computer, smartphone or other device inside state boundaries. In fact, he asserted players' locations can be pinpointed to within 25 meters of where they are sitting.

Jones noted that play-money poker games on popular Internet sites, such as Facebook and Yahoo, are thriving. Those games require players to pay a small amount of real money for thousands of dollars in pretend money.

In actual online poker, he pointed out, there's a chance for players to get their money back.

For the most part, he asserted that the stakes are not dissimilar.

PokerStars, headquartered on the Isle of Man, operates in Europe, Asia, Canada — just about everywhere around the world except the United States.

At any given time, hundreds of thousands of players are participating in PokerStars online tournaments, he said, and in 40 percent of those tournaments the buy-in is $2.50 or less. In 80 percent, it's less than $40.

He noted that he had gone to a legal card room in Sacramento the night before and discovered it would take a stake of $300 or more to participate for the evening.

"Online, you can take $2 or $5 and play for hours and hours," he said. "A huge percentage of players don't spend more than you'd spend on a pizza."

Those aren't the kinds of tournaments Somerville plays in these days, but they're not unlike the ones he played when he stared out.

Somerville acknowledged that in order for him to win, others have to lose. It is, he asserts, not unlike any other skills-based competitions, such as sports.

But for some, it can become a business.

This year, after many years of false starts, a bill to legalize online poker has advanced out of a legislative committee and remains under active consideration. Its prospects for passage appear very iffy, but there has been a movement toward consensus among the Indian gaming tribes, card-room operators, racetrack owners and other gambling-industry interests that likely will have to be satisfied before a bill could pass.

Somerville believes that legal online poker would be a draw for California, bringing tourists and even new residents into the state.

He, for one, would be thrilled to bring his business here.

This is a reprint from vcstar.com. to view the original, click here.