This week’s iGaming Legislative Symposium in Sacramento, California offered an appropriately dubious view on the state’s chances of passing online poker legislation in the near future.

As compiled from a torrent of tweets from the likes of @OPReport, @CAPokerNews, @steranseattle and @ftreric, the confab got off on a pessimistic foot during the keynote address from Assemblyman Mike Gatto, who has authored one of the three distinct online poker bills vying for passage in the current legislative session.

Gatto said that, going into this year, he’d pegged the odds of a bill passing in 2015 at 50:50. Gatto said he now views chances for passage by 2016 at no better than 35%, largely because stakeholders remain as divided as ever.

Gatto said politicians were being confronted with “15 different factions coming in and saying ‘this is a line in the sand, my way or the highway, we hate you for the rest of your life,’” leading pols to wonder “why do I even want to vote for this bill?”

Gatto also said online poker remains a fringe issue for most state residents, and thus a low priority for politicians. Of the over 57k emails Gatto’s office received in 2014, only four or five were about online poker.

PECHANGA MORE BOTHERED BY TRACKS THAN BAD ACTORS

Gatto’s AB 9 legislation contains a strict ‘bad actor’ clause that would bar participation by the likes of PokerStars. Gatto’s bill is supported by the influential Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.