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WA Law: 5 Years in Prison for Gambling Online

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the a-sawbuck-says-you-can't-give-up-gambling dept.

tpoker writes "Online gambling has been an ongoing legal issue for the federal government, but Washington State has recently decided to take matters into their own hands. The Seattle PI reports, 'Beginning next month [June 7th], Washington residents who play poker or make other types of wagers on the Internet will be committing a Class C felony, equivalent under the law to possessing child pornography, threatening the governor or torturing an animal. Although the head of the state Gambling Commission says it is unlikely that individual online gamblers will be targeted for arrest, the new law carries stiff penalties: as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.'"

4 of 535 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Place your bets.... by kodyjoe · · Score: 5, Informative

    The state profits on gambling from horse racing and the state lottery. The Indian casino lobby is huge. Since the online guys don't kick back to the state, and since the Indians have deeper pockets, guess who gets the shaft? Nothing to do with the churches this time.

  2. Re:Place your bets.... by El+Torico · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Either that or it's a persuasive tribal lobbyist."

    Bingo!

    I wondered, "Who sponsored this and who contributed to the sponsor's election?" The sponsor was Senator Margarita Prentice (D) 11th District, and here are some of her financial supporters -

    WA INDIAN GAMING ASSN OLYMPIA WA
    NISQUALLY INDIAN TRIBE OLYMPIA WA
    MUCKLESHOOT INDIAN TRIBE AUBURN WA
    CHIPS CASINO LLC BREMERTON WA
    CONF TRIBES OF COLVILLE RESERVATION NESPELEM WA
    GOLDIE'S SHORELINE CASINO SHORELINE WA

    This is from http://www.pdc.wa.gov/datarequests/factbooks/pdf/F actBook2004.pdf page 75. My thanks to "Dan" of the 2+2 Forums for finding the contributor information.

    --
    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
  3. Re:Might as well kill someone before you gamble. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Re:Might as well kill someone before you gamble. (Score:-1, Offtopic)

    How is this off topic?

    The story was about a doctor who was killed by a SWAT team because he was gambling (in this case, coaxed into placing an illegal bet by an undercover cop).

    Either the mod is a LEO-bot, or the link to the Fox News site must have offended the Slashbot hive mind.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193652,00.html

    In Virginia, the Death Penalty for Gambling
    Monday, May 01, 2006
    By Radley Balko

    About a month ago, I wrote a column about efforts in Congress to ban Internet gambling. There are lots of specific problems about those bills. But the broader issue is troubling, too: Why does our government insist on policing our personal lives for bad habits?

    Because there is almost never a complaining victim in vice crimes, law enforcement offers must go to extraordinary lengths to investigate and prosecute these crimes. This leads to all sorts of other problems, including invasions of privacy, entrapment, and police corruption.

    The sad case of Salvatore Culosi provides a recent, vivid illustration of the folly of vice laws. Culosi (as irony would have it, he was named after a police officer) was a 37-year old optometrist in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Fairfax, Virginia. According to friends, Culosi was a wealthy, self-made man. He was easygoing and friendly, a guy who enjoyed his success.

    He was also a small-time gambler. Culosi and his friends regularly met at bars in the area to watch sports, and frequently wagered on the outcomes of games. The wagers weren't insignificant -- $50, $100, sometimes more on a given afternoon. But the small circle of friends also had the means to back up their wagers. No one was betting the mortgage, here.

    As one friend of Culosi's told me, "To Sal, betting a few bills on the Redskins was a stress reliever, done among friends...none of us single, successful professionals ever thought that betting $50 bucks or so on the Virginia-Virginia Tech football game was a crime worthy of investigation."

    Apparently, it was. Fairfax police detective David J. Baucom met Culosi in a bar one evening last October, befriended him, and was soon making wagers himself. According to those close to Culosi I've spoken with, it wasn't long before Baucom began upping the ante, encouraging Culosi to wager larger sums than what the friends were used to. Baucom would later report in an affidavit that he'd wagered close to $30,000 with Culosi over a three-month period, and had lost nearly $6,000.

    Baucom eventually encouraged Culosi to wager at least $2,000 in a single day, the lower threshold under which Culosi could be charged under state law with "conducting an illegal gambling operation." On January 24 of this year, Detective Baucom assembled the Fairfax County SWAT team, and marched off to Culosi's home to arrest him.

    According to press accounts, police affidavits, and the resulting investigation by the Fairfax prosecutor's office, Baucom called Culosi that evening, and told him he'd be by to collect his winnings. With the SWAT team at the ready just behind him, Baucom waited outside Culosi's home in an SUV. As Culosi emerged from the doorway, clad only in a t-shirt and jeans, SWAT officer Deval Bullock's finger apparently slipped to the trigger of his Heckler & Koch MP5 semiautomatic weapon, already aimed at the unarmed Culosi.

    The gun fired, releasing a bullet that entered Culosi's side, then ripped through his chest and struck his heart, killing him instantly.

    It only got worse from there. This month, Culosi's parents called a press conference to release details of their own investigation into their son's shooting. They found that police waited more than five hours to inform them of their son's death, denyin

  4. Re:Might as well kill someone before you gamble. by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 5, Informative
    The funiest part is that in WA we have tribal gambling, lotteries, and you can even have actual poker rooms off the reservation if you get the permits etc. So gambling is apparently fine, it's the online part that is illegal.

    It's not surprising:

    http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026550.php#026 550

    From the article:

    Probably won't surprise you to learn that the bill's sponsor is heavily supported by Washington State's thriving bricks-and-mortar casino industry.

    Simply trying to protect their business. I am just waiting for the day that our bought and paid for legislators are kicked out of office.

    --
    Do you have ESP?