With Florida’s pot expected to be light about $6 billion next year, backers of online gaming say the state could have an ace in the hole that would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars if the state has the guts to play it.

Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington, said Thursday he’ll refile legislation for 2011 that would legalize, regulate, and tax online poker and other gambling in an effort to get the state a new revenue source before the federal government beats Florida to it.

Abruzzo filed a similar bill earlier this year, but it never had a committee hearing in the 2010 session. But with stimulus money going away and the state’s projected budget deficit thought to be around $6 billion, the $200 million a year he says the proposal could produce would be like having three queens and a wild card.

“The cards are all aligned,” Abruzzo said.

House staff estimated earlier this year that U.S. residents bet just under $6 billion on international gaming websites, and Abruzzo said that checking the IP addresses of the players, it appears there are over a million Internet poker players in Florida.

By allowing Internet gaming companies to set up shop in Florida they could be licensed and charged for that license, and then taxed. Last year’s legislation would have included a $500,000 license fee and a 20 percent gross receipts tax.

The companies would only be allowed to accept players in Florida. Abruzzo said the technology exists to cut off anyone who so much as steps a toe across a state line, and also to help avoid problem gambling.

“If they gamble too much, it shuts them out,” Abruzzo said. “We’re actually regulating not letting people go overboard.”

It also would give the state the ability to regulate the online gaming providers. Currently, people who go online to play Internet poker in Florida are going to unregulated, usually offshore sites.

“Those companies could clear out somebody’s account and they would have no legal resource,” Abruzzo said.

The federal government has prosecuted some types of online betting under The Wire Act, but it specifically excludes intrastate gaming, such as Abruzzo envisions, from the definition of unlawful Internet gambling.

Live poker is authorized in more than 20 licensed cardrooms at pari-mutuel facilities around the state. This past year, the tracks that run the cardrooms didn’t fight Abruzzo’s bill – though since it didn’t go very far they didn’t have to. And they were preoccupied with the Seminole gaming compact that lawmakers approved this past spring.

Perhaps the most unexpected opponent of the legislation: online poker players. More specifically it is opposed by the organization that represents the more than 1 million online poker players around the country, which is pushing for the federal government to legalize and regulate online gaming, rather than having a few states allow it on an in-state only basis.

“We think a federal approach is better,” said Teresa Schofield, spokeswoman for the Poker Players Alliance, the grass-roots advocacy group representing players.

The reason is that if Florida were to only allow online players to play against other players in Florida, the amount of money they could win would be smaller because the pots would only include Florida players. Another advantage to online games is normally the large choice of who you play against, with different skill levels for example, Schofield said. In-state only games would reduce that choice.

Florida is also playing against the house -- the U.S. House.

While Florida -- and also now California -- are considering state-only laws, a measure is moving in Congress that would have the same federal oversight that the Poker Players Alliance wants to see. U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., is pushing a bill to legalize it nationally.

“If the federal government passes this, and we don’t, they’ll come in here and take the bulk of the money,” Abruzzo said.