WASHINGTON COMMISSION COULD SEIZE ONLINE CASINO RECORDS

(164) (26-jul-06)

Analysts assessing the recent online gambling ban in Washington state consider how players could be treated

Associated Press writer Michael Regan presenting an interesting article this week, based on the premise that in terms of Washington state's new anti-online gambling law, US citizens who gamble on the Internet commit a serious (felony) offence.

Whilst players elsewhere in the United States have little fear or liklihood of being prosecuted, since June 7 this does not apply to the state of Washington, where gamblers could be charged with a felony under recently passed legislation.
 
The article quotes the state's gambling commission as promising not to start an active campaign against regular players. However, if a gambling site's records are seized, players whose names appear in those records likely will be sent a warning letter. "If a player's name reappears again, charges may be filed," a newsletter from the commission warns.
 
The article goes on to discuss the well worn trail of whether online casino gaming (as opposed to sportsbook betting via telephone) is illegal or not.   A partner in the New York office of law firm Hite and Case, Gary Kashar says that when it comes to federal criminal charges, individual users of gambling sites have not been targeted for several reasons, including questions over whether or not they are even breaking the law.
 
"The Wire Act - the primary U.S. law used in the prosecution of Internet gambling - refers to engaging in the 'business' of betting or wagering itself, and it's not clear that this applies to individual gamblers," he said. "There are also practical and political reasons to go after large companies as opposed to individual citizens."
 
The author says that the federal judge in the BetonSports case sent gamblers a clear message regarding how her court feels about users of the sites. A restraining order filed in the case required the company to post this message on all its Web sites accessible in the U.S.: "It is a violation of United States law to transmit sports wagers or betting information to this web site from the United States. If you have a wagering account with the operators of this web site, please call (toll free number) to arrange a refund."
 
BetonSports has since shut down its Web sites, though the message promising the refund has yet to appear.
 
The article warns US players that they are still on the hook for federal income tax on winnings. And U.S. gamblers need to be aware that since every Internet gambling site is based in another country, they do not have the same legal rights as they do when dealing with a company incorporated in the United States.
 
"If you're going to bet, you have to be aware that you may not have all of the enforcement remedies that you have when you go to a land-based casino. But that's a reason, obviously, to only gamble with a site that you have trusted and that has a record of making its payments to users," said attorney Ken Dreifach , the former chief of Spitzer's Internet Bureau and now a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP in New York.
 
Proponents of legalised online gambling also warn that more crackdowns by the federal government could bring more obstacles to U.S. gamblers and push the $12-billion-a-year industry into shady territory.
 
"The further the U.S. government pushes this underground, the more chance you have of getting organised crime involved in some of this stuff," said Radley Balko , a policy analyst with the civil liberties Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.