US DOJ Makes Dramatic Online Gambling Announcement
While the Canadian online gambling landscape has grown from strength to strength this year, it's been a tough one for gamblers across the border in the United States.
From online casinos shutting their doors to US players, to Black Friday when the Department of Justice swooped down on major online poker rooms and halted their operations, many will look back at 2011 as one of the darkest years for US online gamblers.
However, in the last fortnight of the year, the Obama administration seems to have done an about-turn on its decades-long policy and issued a dramatic announcement on Friday, the day before Christmas Eve, reversing its interpretation of the 1961 Wire Act.
The opinion, which was actually written in September but published on Friday, is a re-evaluation of the Wire Act which, until now, has been interpreted as incorporating all forms of gambling.
Companies such as Party Gaming were fined millions of dollars for breaking the laws under the Wire Act, as it was taken to cover online casino gambling as well.
However, the US online gambling announcement has clarified that the 1961 Wire Act only covers sports betting.
The Department of Justice wrote its evaluation in response to a request by the states of New York and Illinois to clarify whether they were legally able to sell lottery tickets online. The opinion of Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz stated that the states could go ahead with their online lottery plans and concluded that "the proposed lotteries are not within the prohibitions of the Wire Act."
States Can License Intrastate Online Gambling
The Department of Justice also concluded that individual states have the authority to license and regulate online gambling which does not incorporate sports betting, within their own state borders.
The department stressed, however, that states which banned particular forms of gambling would be able to prosecute illegal operators under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
According to US gaming expert I. Nelson Rose, the Department of Justice "has given the online gaming community a big, big present."
Rose said that these new announcements would eliminate "almost every federal anti gambling law that could apply to gaming that is legal under state laws."
John Pappas of the Poker Players Alliance, said that this was "a much needed clarification of an antiquated and often confusing law."
"For years, legal scholars and even the courts have debated whether the Wire Act applies to non sporting activity," he said. "Today's announcement validates the fact that internet poker does not violate this law."
