Law Against Online Gambling Attracts Criticism
Published: Sunday, June 18, 2006 Online-Casinos.com
WASHINGTON STATE LAW AGAINST ONLINE GAMBLING ATTRACTS CRITICISM
"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 Online-Casinos.com
& 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 passé. 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 may run 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."
