|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Washington state law making online gambling a felony
"From my house, I can drive in almost any direction and pass a land casino in less than five minutes. And just try to watch an hour of local television without a land casino inviting you to join the fun! All of this has the full endorsement of our so-called representatives in Olympia. But....if I want to play from the privacy of my own home (online), they are going to put me in jail?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
That was just one of the many criticisms levelled at the new Washington state law making online gambling a felony recently (see previous InfoPowa reports)
The Seattle Times was giving the new law plenty of exposure this week following reports that even gambling media and information sites where no gambling is actually taking place could be in the firing line. The popular newspaper reported that this sort of activity violates the new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit 'gambling information.'
In a widely publicised opinion piece, a columnist on at the Seattle Times said the first casualty in the state's war on Internet gambling is a local Web site where nobody was actually doing any gambling. "What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling," wrote the columnist. "He reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. He fancied himself a guide to an uncharted frontier, even compiling a list of "rogue casinos" that had bilked gamblers.
"All that, says the state the ads, the linking, even the discussing violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit "gambling information."
Quoting the head of the state gambling commission, one Rick Day, the newspaper says: "It's what the feds would call 'aiding and abetting.' Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal."
The columnist goes on to claim that the state's move against online gambling is insincere. "This is the same state that's happy to enable your online wagering if you're playing the ponies. But mostly the law is unenforceable. And pass. A society steeped in televised Texas Hold'em and Indian casinos is suddenly supposed to recoil at the idea of placing bets with a mouse?"
Warming to his theme, the columnist reveals that he was told by gambling officials that even the The Seattle Times mayrun afoul of the law because it prints a poker how-to column, "Card Shark," by gambler Daniel Negreanu. He sometimes tells readers to hone their skills at online casinos. And at the end of each column is a Web address, fullcontactpoker.com, where readers can comment.
"If you type in that address, you whiz off to Negreanu's digital casino based in the Antilles. It's a tangled Web, isn't it? The state says we'd best do our part to untangle it, and Day told us: "My suggestion to you is to remove from your paper any advice about online gambling and any links to illegal sites."
The telling conclusion of the piece is this: "The state's gone from trying to control gambling, which is legit, to trying to control people speaking about gambling. It's hard to take coming from a state that bombards us with pitches for the biggest sucker's bet of all. You know, the one they call the lottery."
|
|
|
|
| Back to News Menu... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
