Online Gambling Idea Gets The Thumbs Down
Published: Friday, April 01, 2005 Online-Casinos.com
CALLING GRANDMA WON'T CUT IT SAYS AG
Ingenious new online gambling idea gets the thumbs down
Someone in Wyoming has come up with an ingenious form of Internet gambling, but unfortunately it does not appear as if the state attorney general is going to allow it.
State AG Pat Crank says that the new computer sweepstakes games appears to be illegal under Wyoming law, although he has only limited information on exactly how the Extreme Insured Promotions Phone Card, Internet and Computer Time Sweepstakes (EIP) works.
The game is being offered at a new Internet cafe in the state. Players of the EIP sweepstakes pay $5 for a 100-minute phone card that can also be used to access the Internet for one hour on the Internet Cafe's computers. When players purchase the card, they are given 100 sweepstakes entries. Players can then use the sweepstakes entries to play slot-machine-style games on the Internet Cafe's computers. If a winning combination is hit on the game, the player is awarded win points that are redeemable for cash.
"There does not seem like much difference between that and putting a quarter in a slot machine and pulling the lever and having coins trickle out of the bottom," Crank said. "You are still playing a slot machine and ultimately you can win cash because you are playing that slot machine."
The fact that one can access the Internet to e-mail friends and other perfectly legal activities on the Internet Cafe's machines should not make much of a difference when it comes to their legality, the attorney general said.
"If that logic held, I guess I could put a phone receiver on the side of a slot machine and so when I put my dime in, I could either play the slot machine or I could call my grandma," Crank said. "If in fact that slot machine is being used as a slot machine, it would be illegal under Wyoming law, even though I had the ability to call my grandma as well."
