Gambling
Federal
Laws
March 07, 2006
The federal Wire Act
prohibits sports betting under certain conditions. In
the case of criminal charges under the Wire Act were
filed and upheld against the operator of an online
sports betting site. While prosecution of betting
operators has occurred, as in the Cohen case, there has
been no known prosecution of a customer. There have been
several federal
laws proposed in the legislature that would have
prohibited additional forms of online gambling beyond
sports betting. The proposed laws have been enacted.
Betting on horse racing and dog racing are specifically
authorized under federal law if certain criteria are
met. Federal gambling law does not address games of
skill, and there are many skill gaming sites that
operate within the United States. If a bettor and an
operator are based in different states, the Department
of Justice views gambling as occurring in both
jurisdictions. Despite the narrow limits of federal
gambling prohibitions, barriers to online gambling in
the United States extend beyond legal restrictions. The
law clarifies that credit card agencies are not in
violation of racketeering laws if they permit their
services to be used for online gambling, most major
credit cards in the United States have adopted policies
of declining online gambling transactions. The internet
escrow service settled a New York state lawsuit by
adopting a similar policy of declining transactions from
online gambling sites. State laws concerning online
gambling vary significantly. California specifically
permits online wagers on horse racing, and sites
licensed in that state have accepted wagers from other
states. Nevada also specifically permits online gambling
for state-licensed sites.
Online gambling laws:
The gambling or some form of online gambling. The North
Dakota law, which would have permitted online poker, was
defeated shortly after the Department of Justice sent a
letter to the state legislature indicating the
department's view that online poker was against federal
law. These actions have included stating that online
gambling is illegal in their states through legal
opinion letters, writing letters to operators requesting
that they no longer accept customers in the state, and
suing or prosecuting sports book the operators, casino
operators, gaming software providers, billboard and
search engine advertisers, and credit card companies.
While the suits have faced difficulty in crossing
international jurisdictional boundaries, interstate
boundaries were crossed when a Pennsylvania-based online
casino operator was extradited to Missouri for trial.
Despite the fact that few of these cases were tried
successfully, the series of cases contributed to a
climate of uncertainty that continues to hinder
participation in the industry.
The issued warning letters to a number of associations
including the National Association of Broadcasters and
the Newspaper Association of America to forward to their
members. These actions had a chilling effect on
advertising for online gambling. The Casino City
challenged the actions of the Justice department by
filing a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that
advertising online casinos and sports books is protected
commercial free speech under the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution. Despite of the Justice
department’s stated view that advertising online casinos
and online sports books may be aiding and abetting
criminal activity, the lawsuit was dismissed on the
grounds that Casino City faced no threat of prosecution.
The United States argued that existing laws were
designed to protect "public morals" and thus did not
violate the agreement.
Copyright © 2000-2007
GamblingWiz.com All rights
reserved. |
