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It happened again. The Department of Justice has interpreted the Wire Act of 1961. Not once. Not twice. Not for the third time even. Just the third time in the last handful of years!
It may be no surprise to those of you who follow the online poker industry, but the United States DOJ is all over the board on this one. Does the Wire Act apply to online poker and gambling or not?
According to Sheldon Adelson, huge political donor and casino magnate, it definitely does. And he is throwing his money and his considerable weight around in order to make it so. We believe his efforts have resulted in a recent change to the interpretation of said law to a harsher stance that now impacts online gambling.
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has released an opinion through its Office of Legal Counsel expressing a new reinterpretation of the Wire Act whereby it applies not only to sports betting but rather all forms of gambling, including internet poker.
The document was released to the public on Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 although it’s dated Nov. 2, 2018. It overturns a previous memorandum from September 2011, which held that the Wire Act’s prohibition on transmitting betting information across state lines only applied to betting on sports and not to online poker or other forms of real money internet gaming.This is bad news for many states looking to “go legal” with state sponsored regulation. It is particularly troublesome for the state of Pennsylvania, who already passed legislation for regulated state gambling and poker, but had yet to implement it.
They are in a gray area and it’s causing them quite a hassle:
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has warned that the Wire Act now applies to all forms of online gambling rather than just sports betting, which had been the earlier official interpretation. In the wake of this new Wire Act opinion, The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) released a memo on Friday, Jan. 18 giving individual licensed gaming operations thirty days to show how the new interpretation of the Wire Act may impact their operations. They must submit the requested information by Feb. 18.
