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Online Poker Legal Battles On The Horizon - 08-03-07
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Author: Marc
August 3 - Last year the state of Washington caused a fuss by making online poker a felony. It's a stupid law, poorly written, vaguely conceived, and never meant to be applied - a scare tactic by local government in essence - but it did make the headlines and appeased Tribal casinos who pushed for the law.
The protectionist angle of an online poker ban is just one of many reasons why a lawyer, Lee Rousso, has filed a lawsuit against the ban claliming that it violates the US constitution. It is certainly hard to disprove his central notion that by forcing players away from legal (in other offshore jurisdictions) Internet poker companies so that they patronize local poker rooms the law is discriminatory in nature and runs roughshod over the Commerce Clause.
There are numerous other reasons why the lawsuit is valid, including the fact that the Wire Act makes no mention of Internet Poker, violates the US federal government's obligations towards the GATT treaty signed at the WTO - although the US government would hotly dispute that one, and that the law also violates Washington residents constitutional rights (Amendment 14) because it is so unclear as to what is and is not punishable by law.
That's just one challenge to online gambling law going on in the USA right now. A more important federal case will see iMEGA take on the DOJ and their cronies challenging the dreaded UIGEA bill. We all need iMEGA to succeed in a New Jersey court with their temporary restraining order, at least temporarily preventing this aberrant law from being implemented any time soon.
Antigua continues to threaten sanctions against the USA and accumulate more allies to their righteous cause. The USA's blatantly hypocritical attitude towards online gambling cannot withstand this type of legal pressure for much longer - the fact that online horse racing with a US-based company (Youbet) is legal but online horse racing with an Antigua-based company (Bodog) is illegal, even though it's the same races with the same odds should seem fishy to any judge.
The PPA and other groups fighting to protect the future of online poker in America should not spend time trying to carve out exemptions within a bad law like the UIGEA. Instead they should be fighting against the law itself, and protect the freedoms of all USA citizens who want to gamble online.
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