Interactive

US – Poker association slams Senator’s suggestion to ban online gaming

By Phil - 13 January 2017

The Poker Players Alliance in the United States has acted angrily to calls from Senator Lindsay Graham, to review the Department of Justice’s position on the Wire Act to ban online gaming.

Senator Lindsay Graham made the suggestion during the Senate confirmation hearing for Sessions.

John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance, said: “In 2006, a Republican Congress and a Republican President passed and signed into law a bill that allowed states to regulate online gaming. This language was reaffirmed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2011 and empowered individual states to pursue policies that best served their citizens.

“A reversal of this decision would be a radical departure from the precedent given to the independent and legally based opinions generated by DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). We appreciate nominee Sessions’ pledge to give the issue ‘careful study,’ and we also have no doubt that such careful study will reaffirm what OLC, the courts and Congress already agree on: the Wire Act is limited to sports betting and states may regulate other forms of internet gaming.

“In his opening statement, nominee Sessions said his Department of Justice would not ‘cower to special interests.’ We applaud that stance, and share it, as we have long been on the front lines of this fight battling against powerful political donors and special interests seeking to influence legal policy in the US for their own financial benefit,” Mr Pappas explained.

“I agree with Senator Graham, ‘when the state is doing its job, the federal government should let the states do their job.’ States around the country are doing their jobs by effectively regulating internet gaming. The next Attorney General should not usurp the rights of states. A de facto federal prohibition of internet gaming will undermine the ability of states to protect consumers and will lead to an unaccountable and completely unregulated black market.”

Countless organisations agree that states should be able to regulate online gaming – regulation that provides robust consumer protections. Support for the 2011 interpretation includes: The American Conservative Union; Americans for Tax Reform; Campaign for Liberty; Center for Individual Freedom; Competitive Enterprise Institute; Fraternal Order of Police; National Conference of State Legislatures; National Governors Association; Ron Paul Institute; and Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

A coalition of seven groups led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute immediately urged Vice President-Elect Mike Pence and US Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions to reject calls to ban online gambling using a pre-Internet 1961 law.

They said attempts to use the Federal Wire Act to ban Internet gambling ‘was clearly not the intent of Congress when it was enacted in 1961.’

The coalition said: “Regulatory intervention now from the US Department of Justice would represent a true violation of the legislative process” and undermine the rights and flexibility states now have to collect revenue from in-state commerce and set policies that reflect the interests of their own constituents. Today, it’s online gambling, but in the future it might be gun and ammunition sales targeted by Congress or an over-zealous executive branch.”