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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."
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."
The article does not explain why it would be difficult as a practical matter to ensure that payments do not get routed through other states. Can anyone clarify what they mean by this? What exactly would need to be done, and how difficult would it be?
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
If this law applies to loot box gambling, there will be a very large market with many customers that no longer welcomes unscrupulous games.
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.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I bet you 5 dollars the courts strike this down.
Belgium has already made loot boxes illegal due to them being another form of gambling.
When is the US going to follow?
I wonder if it affects loot boxes. Some EU countries think they are basically gambling
+Raider of the lost BBS
I live in the UK.
In my last house (in quite a respectable area of London, famous for very posh schools etc.), the local high street was dead. There were a handful of shops.
What happened is that betting shops moved in. Dozens of them. At one point, six in the same street (which was only short).
The people going in are pissing away their money to fund an addiction. They've now had to introduce laws to reduce the maximum bet on a "fixed odds betting terminal" (fruit machine to you and me) to £2, because it was getting up to £100 for one spin in some instances.
To generalise, the clientele are generally unwanted - dozens and dozens of people who crowd the ATMs on the day when benefits (social security) are paid, draw it out instantly, and spend all day in the betting shops and drinking.
It's not everyone. I have what the British call "a flutter" occasionally, and I'm a mathematician too, so I can do the maths to tell you that you'll never win on average. But you don't really want your population gambling away money unless you own and tax the casinos so heavily that it's beneficial - even then, the social cost is enormous because the people who gamble the most are those that can't afford to.
Las Vegas is tainted because of this for me - I get that it's a part of the US culture in that area, and casinos are different to grubby betting shops, but the clientele are the same.
You'd think you could just tax it to oblivion to counteract any effect, but it does more than just encourage people to get into debt. It's an addiction. There are "gamble aware" programs, where anything advertising gambling has to offer certain functions (i.e. to let people "lock" themselves out of their account for a period of time, to encourage them to "gamble responsibility", and so on). In Italy and other places in Europe, cruise ships (which used to be seen as luxury liners for the rich) are now just regarded with condemnation because they are just used as offshore gambling and drinking dens, usually for British tourists!
The TV is full of adverts for bingo and casinos (online and offline). It's become "the norm" to be swamped in gambling advertising.
There's a big difference between someone playing a lottery once a month (what I'd say was analogous to, say, a village fete tombola) and high-level gambling establishments. Online can be dangerous - it's just a number on a screen.
Gambling will always exist. But it can lead to a degeneration if it's unchecked. I don't get the online/offline distinction but certainly controls need to be in place. The UK ditched most of the legislation about what can apply to be a casino or gambling establishment, and all it means is that the whole high street is just full of gambling places, and websites full of gambling ads.
I've gambled in Las Vegas. I've gambled on cruise ships (but the QE2 was the last of the luxury liners and wasn't gambling-focused at all, it was just a fancy evening dressed up). I know the odds and play games for a living. Hell I have a felt card table, card shoe and poker chips in my lounge as I speak... but even to me, unrestricted or lax gambling legislation has lead to an easily observable phenomenon and every-day news story headline... "My boyfriend stole our benefits to gamble away all our money, and now we're homeless".
I can understand them wanting to limit it. The ruling is a bit arbitrary, but gambling isn't as victimless as you might think. It's not the people losing the money they need to live that are hurt... they are suffering for their own stupidity. It's the knock-on effect on society.
...what about lockboxes, then?
-Styopa
Gambling I thought was harmless until I witnessed first hand a buddy of mine go down the tube with online gambling on the early days of online poker. We're talking the age of dial up modem. The guy lost a ton of money, basically wiped out, started running up credit cards, getting cash from cards, just everything to gamble. After first making fun of him, as this progressed we really started to get scared for him. Ended up sabotaging his modem, then his computer, then basically what nowadays they would call an intervention. Though less touchy feelly and more "Dude, you are a *&#$$ dumb*@!#, you better get your @#$@ together, or we're kicking you out of the place."
He got over it, but a couple times years later we'd meet up for a wedding or something where you can gamble, Nassau, Bahamas etc, he would hit the tables and go nuts, lose all his cash. Though he did win $9k one night, and we ended up hiding $8k of that from him until after the trip. By that time he was smart enough to let us take his credit cards away too. But that impulse looks scary and call it what you want, addiction, moral deficit, habit, whatever...its the real deal and if I were running the world I would seek to minimize it as much as possible.
the government heavily regulates who can buy and sell stocks. You can't for instance, as a small investor, just pick a random company to give money to. There are rules about how, where and when you can invest specifically to prevent predatory investment instruments. To say nothing of the rules about soliciting investments.
A friend's company went on the lookout for investors for a new product and it's crazy how many rules there are on both sides of the equation. The only thing that makes gambling any different is the rules get suspended if you go to Las Vegas or an Indian Casino. For the most part those two self regulate to keep the absolute worst excesses in check (though they still take advantage of people to what I would say is an appalling degree).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Let'em bet it. Let'em win or lose. The mechanism or location used for placing the bet and conducting the transaction should not matter. My father always told me never to bet money that I was not willing to lose. If it's a bad bet, and you don't know it, then you're the fool. And, a fool and his/her money will soon be parted. If you're at a poker table and you don't know who the weakest player at the table is, then it's you! Same holds when you're doing things on the internet.
This whole thing about reinterpretation of 50 year old laws strikes me oddly. We in the U.S. have a Congress right now that is more interested in getting re-elected and filling their own pockets than making sound and just laws. Sadly, there may actually be money to be made and fun to be had without this reinterpretation. Too bad. Call your Congress whatchamacallit and tell them you want to place bets and be responsible for your own losses and hunger!
But using the state's punishment system as a deterrent seems rather drastic to me, especially when you see what the War On Drugs® has done to the United States. And by driving it underground it will promote a certain counterculture aesthetic that might make the activity even more seductive to someone who's already vulnerable.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
I've never understood why gambling is so much of a controlled substance here in the US. I can buy scratch tickets at the gas station, pull tabs at the bar, and nobody ever gets raided for playing poker.... but for some reason every few years there seems to be some big gambling scare. I've always kind of assumed it was just marketing to get people to go to Vegas?
Somebody enlighten me.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
This /. article leaves out key pieces of information quoted in the source: this is an opinion (and NOT a law or regulaton!) and impacts forms of online gambling *crossing state lines* ONLY.
As long as online gambling does not cross state boundaries AND the state itself has regulated online gambling, such as New Jersey, online gambling is perfectly legal but ONLY on those sites regulated and approved by appropriate regulators. Other states where itâ(TM)s perfectly legal to gamble online include Nevada, Delaware. But everything - e.g. players, servers, also taxes ;), have to remain within the state boundaries.
E.g. for New Jersey hereâ(TM)s the list of authorized and legal online gaming sites regulated by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement: https://www.nj.gov/lps/ge/gamingsites.html.
The other part worth mentioning is this is ONLY an *opinion* that does not carry any legal weight whatsoever.
Gee, a cynic would say think that the Trump administration did this to benefit brick-and-mortar casino owners, such as, oh, I don't know, Sheldon Adelson.
Wire gambling is banned due to the high fraud rate.
In particular, it offered nothing like the protections that were offered by the legal casinos against crooked games.
The same about internet video poker. There's no power strong enough to ensure they aren't rigged.
Do loot boxes count?
I would think this benefits physical gambling establishments. Who do we know that owns physical gambling establishments?
All insurance is based on statistical risk. Is selling insurance online now illegal?
Trying to make it illegal is stupid, since it won't stop people.
Really? Do you want to bet on that?
That's a very moving description of the kinds of problems that gambling can lead to. And you're right: gambling tends to be done - not by the millionaires - but by the people who can least afford it. Hoping for that one big win to heave themselves out of their misery, and thereby putting themselves on the street.
That said, banning activities is (usually) counterproductive, because it just drives them underground. In the case of gambling, would it not be better to treat it the way we do smoking? Prohibit advertising, make it as unattractive as possible. So you can have your betting shop, but you cannot advertise, and you cannot have anything but a plain shopfront. For internet sites, of course, it is a lot more difficult, but one can still try, and regulation of the payment processors may be the best lever.
OTOH there is no cure for human stupidity. People have been pissing away their wages for as long as there have been wages. If you could eliminate gambling, people would drink their wages, or smoke them, or give everything to some charismatic cult leader. The only "cure" is long-term, trying to ensure that kids get solid educations and employment opportunities, so that fewer of them turn into the hopeless types that do this kind of stuff...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I feel like I've heard this story many times. Drugs, alcohol, sex, internet. Then there's ones people don't consider addictions, such as work and love.
For most people, they get caught in one of those traps. It ruins them for a while, then they learn not to do it again.
It's definitely worse for them than not having been addicted at all, but I don't think there's a way to learn that lesson without going through the process. If it's not gambling, it'll be one of those other things. It's just unfortunate that for some of them, it ends up being fatal.
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.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So your argument is that if a business is undesirable on your street it should be illegal? I bet you wouldn't want a sewage treatment plant next door to you, does that mean you will argue they should be outlawed in UK? This is why there are zoning laws and regulations, to keep businesses from disrupting neighborhood - obviously something failed on your street by allowing six gambling shops to open next to each other.
You argument about addiction has some merit, but you could argue that about alcohol too. Are you a proponent banning all alcohol for human consumption because, no argument there, alcohol addition has ruined many lives? How about sex? That can be a powerful addiction too. Are the Brits wanting to outlaw sex too (introduce hospitalized procreation sex and only allow recreational sex on cruises)? Banning gambling, alcohol, or sex, doesn't work - people who want to do it will find a way. The way to deal with it in society is to control it, if for no other reason other than because you can't stop it and futile trying is very expensive.
About Vegas and the US, I think people who don't live here think Vegas is the only place with gambling. Most states have casinos today. You can usually find one within driving distance unless you live in places like Utah. I've lived in a number of states (not Nevada), and I could usually drive to a casino and/or a card room in under an hour, most often under 20 minutes.US is fighting online gambling, but brick and mortar locations are still growing all over - governments are encouraging those (for obvious reasons).
I think it all boils down to how paternalistic you want your government to be. Should they treat their citizens as irresponsible children who need to be tightly controlled because "the government knows better what's good for you" or should you give people freedom to determine their own future? You mention how cruise ships fell into disrepute because of gambling. Well, that's how it's supposed to be. If there was a market for gambling free cruises, they would be offered, evidently there isn't if they are not offered (or maybe you just discovered a great investment opportunity?). Also, people wouldn't be going on cruises to gamble if they could gamble at home.
You know, there was one government in history which "knew better" and controlled their citizens as much as possible - Communist Russia. They always knew better what is best for their citizens. More libraries or more night clubs? Of course, libraries are better than night clubs for society right? Well, how come people risked life and limb to escape such controlled society then? Personally I prefer to live in a free society, even if it enables people to be stupid and self-destructive.
Are you voting for prohibition too? Or not yet, because you don't know anyone who had their life ruined by alcohol?
How does a Justice Dept opinion become "US Now Says...Blah, Blah, Blah"? Especially considering that opinion isn't binding, and not representative of the US. The courts will tell us what is and isn't legal when they get a case to respond to. And clearly, it is legal within state lines no matter what Justice says because SCOTUS...wait for it...trumps them.
Just another day in Paradise
Among other definitions ! I found online that a state line is: "a border between one state and another in a country with states"
This would seem to mean that it does not apply to crossing the border between, say, Minnesota and Canada and perhaps again crossing the border between Canada and Alaska.
Maybe Alaska will become the online vegas
Nullius in verba
Are these not basically gambling for kids? Fuck off Activision and EA
The biggest gambling racket in the world is Wall Street. Investing is nothing more than gambling and should be taxed and regulated as such.
...
Fuck them. And double fuck the baby sitters of the world.
America should not err on the side of caution, but on the side of more freedom. Sorry you've got a personality disorder that causes you to do things to such an extreme that it ruins your well-being. But I am not sorry enough to take the ability to do those things away from everyone who doesn't have such a disorder.
what about sites like draft kings, that are being pushed and encouraged by the sport leagues themselves?