US Now Says All Online Gambling Illegal, Not Just Sports Bets (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The U.S. Justice Department's decision that all internet gambling is illegal will cast a pall on the industry as businesses and state lotteries evaluate the implications of the change and the government's plans to enforce it. The U.S. now says federal law bars all internet gambling, reversing its position from 2011 that only sports betting is prohibited under a law passed 50 years earlier. Although the federal law specifically prohibits transmission of wagers and related information across state lines, the Justice Department's new interpretation will impact all online gambling because as a practical matter it's difficult to guarantee that no payments are routed through other states, said Aaron Swerdlow, an attorney with Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP in Los Angeles.

The reversal was prompted by the department's criminal division, which prosecutes illegal gambling. The opinion issued about seven years ago that the 1961 Wire Act only banned sports gambling was a misinterpretation of the statute, according to a 23-page opinion by the department's Office of Legal Counsel dated Nov. 2 and made public Monday. The new reading of the law probably will be tested in the courts as judges may entertain challenges to the government's view of the law's scope, the Justice Department said. It may also affect states that began selling lottery tickets online after the 2011 opinion, as well as casinos that offer online gambling. In contrast, the Supreme Court last May "cleared the way [...] for states to legalize sports betting, striking down a 1992 federal law that had prohibited most states from authorizing sports betting."

Comments

Stocks

[backslashdot]

So investing in the stock market, or anything for that matter, is illegal?

Investing in anything has a risk/probabilistic component. Therefore it is a form of gambling. Well isnâ(TM)t it?

And donâ(TM)t retort with BS that playing blackjack online is 100% luck based .. it isnâ(TM)t. I mean, let me know randomly how clicking âoehit meâ for everything works out. All gambling takes some amount of skill to improve your odds.

Re: Stocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Stocks, trading, and investing are essentially a form of legalized gambling. Not sure why OP is rated as a troll, it's a fully legitimate point.

Sure, it has its own set of nomenclature but it's throwing money at something with probability that money will either grow or shrink, like all gambling.

One may argue that it contributes back to society, the again, so do winners in traditional gambling scenarios who push their money back into the economy.

The real difference I see is that stocks allow for creating risk pools to gamble with where multiple people (shareholders) divide the risk (similar to typical insurance policies). By sharing risk in pools, the money gambled is allowed to grow and be used for more complex longer lasting games (businesses) than typical gambling (boxing match, football game, horse race...). Those really reaping the rewards leverage insider trading secrets, akin to the 'house' having the advantage in established known probability games.

Stock investments are still gambling, no matter how you dress it up.

Re:Stocks

[alvinrod]

Don't forget insurance. That's just another form of gambling as well when it comes down to it. Of course the government has no problem with they or their friends who can make sizable campaign contributions engaging in the kinds of behavior that that the common man cannot.

Trying to make it illegal is stupid, since it won't stop people. It just drives everything underground and gives criminals another profitable enterprise in which they can engage.

Trump's Taj Mahal

[PopeRatzo]

The fact that Trump has had an interest in several casinos in the past and says he seeks to be in the casino business again in the future has absolutely nothing to do with his Justice Department outlawing all online gambling.

Nothing whatsoever.

Re:Trump's Taj Mahal

[PopeRatzo]

We can add this to the list of theories there is no evidence for.

Do you need evidence that Donald Trump had financial interests in casinos? It's public record, and he put his name on it in big letters.

Do you need evidence that Donald Trump's Justice Department just made online gambling illegal? It's right up there in the summary. So what do you need evidence for again? Those were to only assertions I made.

Re:What is the reasoning behind anti-gambling

[serviscope_minor]

moral deficit

I think it's a quite common attitude that it's a moral deficit so they deserve it really. I mean they should just be stronger.

I am not likely to ever get addicted to gambling because I simply don't get any kind of rush from it. It's very easy to not be addicted to something which to me is a bit boring and expensive.

But there's no moral fortitude in me not gambling.