Opinion: US stepped over the line with Internet poker raid

Monday, April 25, 2011  

"Can a government be charged with war crimes, if the war is only one of intimidation?

The U.S. federal Department of Justice isn’t blowing up buses. No one has died. But while Palestinian terrorists can only close down Israeli pizza parlors; the DoJ stopped online poker sites from doing business anywhere in the world – including where poker is 100% legal.

On Friday, April 15, 2011, the DoJ seized the .com names of five of the biggest poker sites. It is not even clear that online poker is illegal in every state and territory of the U.S. But players in countries like England, where it is indisputably legal, also found themselves unable to access their favorite sites.

This is a door the U.S. should never have opened. The next to step through could be an Islamic country, which outlaws alcohol, seizing the worldwide domain names of every retailer and restaurant that advertises beer or wine.

And the DoJ also effectively froze the money deposited by hundreds of thousands of American players, who had done nothing wrong. There is no federal law against merely playing poker. Half the states do have mostly ancient laws on the books making it a crime, sometimes, to make a bet. But in the other half, it is not a crime to even bet with an illegal operation.

This is true of New York, where the DoJ’s legal actions were filed. The criminal indictments charged the online operators under a statute, 18 U.S.C. §1955, which makes it a federal felony to be a large business in violation of state anti-gambling laws. The only state laws cited are New York’s Penal Law 225 and 225.05, which clearly do not apply to mere poker players."

Get the Story:
I. Nelson Rose: Gambling and the Law: Black Friday - A Step Too Far (Casino City Times 4/25)