The "word on the street" among lawyers I knew when the UIGEA[1] was passed in 2006 (which paved the way for black Friday[2]) was that Sheldon Adelson & the Vegas Lobby had pushed hard for this.
The long-term aim, in their opinions, was to capture the online gambling market on a state-by-state basis via regulatory capture, because they had already missed the boat and were being out-competed by Pokerstars et al.
It's no surprise that the regulations in e.g. New Jersey require a "partnership" with a land-based casino.
edit: also, I should note that Vegas probably shot themselves in the foot doing this (at least short-term). Online gambling brought a surge of business to Vegas, and though the recession had a lot to do with it, the banning of online poker definitely hurt them a lot.
Anti-gambling sentiment and related laws in US date back to the 19th century. But those laws didn't discriminate between various types of gambling, it was all illegal. Washington is one of the states that never relaxed it fully. To this day, casinos are only legal on reservations, for example.
In contrast: "The Supreme Court cleared the way on Monday for states to legalize sports betting, striking down a 1992 federal law that had prohibited most states from authorizing sports betting."
What a bizarre legal situation -- instead of banning sports betting, the federal government tried to force states to ban it. It isn't like 1992 was pre-Wickard v Filburn.
As it may be of interest, here's the related portion of the Wire Act:
Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses
a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
By my most literal interpretation of this law my inlaws can now be arrested for our march madness bracket. This seems absurd that we've let even this level of ambiguity come to pass in a country that used to pride itself on personal liberty; especially when the law was paid for by clear corporate cronyism and special interests to benefit from its passage.
Can anyone legally versed tell me why I shouldn't be this incensed?
> (b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of information for use in news reporting of sporting events or contests, or for the transmission of information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on a sporting event or contest from a State or foreign country where betting on that sporting event or contest is legal into a State or foreign country in which such betting is legal.
So if it is legal in your state to you to have casual betting (which is often the case, for example New York State excludes "casual" bookmaking [1]) and it is legal in the other state to have casual betting, then there's likely no conflict with the Federal law.
[1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/225.00, General Definitions, 9. "Bookmaking" means advancing gambling activity by unlawfully accepting bets from members of the public as a business, rather than in a casual or personal fashion, upon the outcomes of future contingent events.
Well, clearly we can not infringe upon the personal liberty of the corporate person that is paying for this law to be enacted. That would be wrong, in today's 3/5ths equality between humans and corporate persons.
Congress could moot all of this by simply passing (or repealing existing law) a law that leaves the issues to the states in question. While online gambling poses issues when not all states adopt the same rules, just treat it like sales tax and require the vendor (and gambler) to obey the laws of the state of the gambler. Sure, there would be vendors and gamblers who don't obey this, but there are already gambling providers (bookies) and gamblers who aren't following state or federal law.
It has always perplexed me why there is a desire to deal with kind of thing at the federal level in the first place. States being able to decide these things for themselves is supposed to be what makes such a massive country stay functional.
Human hubris. If you're a federal lawmaker, and you know you make great laws, why wouldn't you want all 50 states to get the benefit of your wise decision-making?
In so far as the federal government can unilaterally expand its reach, it will tend to do so, if just because being part of the federal government makes you more likely to think things should be regulated at the federal level. The authors of the Constitution knew this, and drafted it to safeguard the rights of state governments. But "states's rights" has been a dirty word for quite some time.
depends on how they are structured. a few companies have moved to where loot boxes guarantee to return goods of the same value as the cost. Now of course they set these values by offering similar goods on their stores for direct purchase. that being said, those values being up the developers could be depicted as misleading.
my take away is this, as long as we allow states to market lotteries then the idea that private companies should be held to differing rules is wrong. either all play on a level playing field or none play. considering the misery many state lotteries are said to bring I don't see how they can stand there smug except the fact they have the courts and police power to get away with it.
While unsavory, I feel like loot boxes are closer to a raffle than what we typically consider gambling, and to treat them as gambling would open up a serious gray area.
How in the world do you consider it a raffle? A raffle is when more than 1 person pays money ahead of time with some chance of winning a variety of prizes, and the odds are basically known depending on how many people bought the raffle tickets.
A loot box is literally "Pay $1 and see what you get!", and there are percentages behind what you can get (unknown to us). It's literally no different than buying a lottery ticket, except you always get something (maybe equivalent to the value of the lottery ticket) with a chance of getting something more valuable.
Now maybe they are adjusting lootbox percentages on the back-end so too many people don't get something unique if that's how you are trying to claim it's a raffle.. but I still don't think that makes it anywhere near the definition of a raffle.
Horse racing (parimutuel wagering) is specifically allowed in some states, such as Florida. In those states, it's legal to bet online on any horse race around the world. Twinspires (the company that owns Churchill Downs) lets you bet online, for example: https://www.twinspires.com/
In case anyone is wondering, interstate wagering on horse races is specifically allowed in federal law by the Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978, so it's not affected by this reinterpretation of the Wire Act.
It's splitting hairs IMHO. Lots of things we find acceptable are basically gambling like the stock/bond/futures markets, insurance, and prediction markets.
Maybe a better answer is why we ban gambling at all. There are people who have a problem with it, but maybe a better solution is to get them help to break the cycle instead of banning it in some cases but not others.
Or any self-destructive behavior for that matter...
I think the problem is we don't know the exact point when a pleasure becomes a problem. Or, how to effectively help people even if we did know when they crossed a line.
Society will pay a price somewhere. It's just right now, we seem more willing to curtail our freedom in that area than we are to help those who make mistakes.
I live in Australia, which has very relaxed gambling laws. I can walk into most pubs/bars in my city and find poker machines for example, as well as a sports/horse betting facility.
There are huge social consequences to gambling. If you look at an entire society you have some people that will have problems with it and some people that won't. You may fall into the "won't" pile but surely society benefits if we prevent a large number of our members from falling prey to addiction.
Why is there an $850 limit to how much I can buy on any one contract?
PredictIt operates under no-action relief from the Division of Market Oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. An $850 limit on investment by an individual participant in any contract is a condition of this relief.
Here's the updated opinion [1] referenced but not linked to in the article. They link to the old 2011 opinion [2] that said that only sports betting was covered.
Readit News
"Adelson's newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, was the only major newspaper nationwide to endorse Trump.[42][43]
Adelson was also the largest donor to Trump's inaugural celebrations, with a $5 million donation to the celebrations.[44]" -- Wikipedia
The "word on the street" among lawyers I knew when the UIGEA[1] was passed in 2006 (which paved the way for black Friday[2]) was that Sheldon Adelson & the Vegas Lobby had pushed hard for this.
The long-term aim, in their opinions, was to capture the online gambling market on a state-by-state basis via regulatory capture, because they had already missed the boat and were being out-competed by Pokerstars et al.
It's no surprise that the regulations in e.g. New Jersey require a "partnership" with a land-based casino.
edit: also, I should note that Vegas probably shot themselves in the foot doing this (at least short-term). Online gambling brought a surge of business to Vegas, and though the recession had a lot to do with it, the banning of online poker definitely hurt them a lot.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_Enf...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg
"For Washington State residents, all gambling on the Internet is illegal, including all types of sports betting. "
https://www.wsgc.wa.gov/about-us/frequently-asked-questions/...
edit: quote+link
https://statelaws.findlaw.com/washington-law/washington-gamb...
So this all is separate from the Federal Wire Act, and the even more recent discussion on how to interpret it wrt online gambling.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/14/politics/sports-betting-ncaa-...
Many states now allow sports gambling, with many more on the way.
Deleted Comment
Note IANAL, but there doesn't seem to be a necessary conflict.
Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers or information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
18 U.S.C. § 1084(a) (codifying Pub. L. No. 87-216, § 2, 75 Stat. 491 (1961)).
From the 2011 DOJ opinion that stated that only sports bets were illegal[1]
1. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/201...
Can anyone legally versed tell me why I shouldn't be this incensed?
> (b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of information for use in news reporting of sporting events or contests, or for the transmission of information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on a sporting event or contest from a State or foreign country where betting on that sporting event or contest is legal into a State or foreign country in which such betting is legal.
So if it is legal in your state to you to have casual betting (which is often the case, for example New York State excludes "casual" bookmaking [1]) and it is legal in the other state to have casual betting, then there's likely no conflict with the Federal law.
[1] https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/PEN/225.00, General Definitions, 9. "Bookmaking" means advancing gambling activity by unlawfully accepting bets from members of the public as a business, rather than in a casual or personal fashion, upon the outcomes of future contingent events.
"Bracket pools, office sports pools, and fantasy sports have never been authorized as gambling activities in Washington State and are illegal."
https://www.wsgc.wa.gov/about-us/frequently-asked-questions/...
https://gist.github.com/jeremyaboyd/6012e7c0d80138f366064d69...
The question is about "on any sporting event or contest"
Is that "on any sporting event or sporting contest" or "on any sporting event or other contest"
In so far as the federal government can unilaterally expand its reach, it will tend to do so, if just because being part of the federal government makes you more likely to think things should be regulated at the federal level. The authors of the Constitution knew this, and drafted it to safeguard the rights of state governments. But "states's rights" has been a dirty word for quite some time.
Deleted Comment
You mean like your 9th and 10th Amendment rights from the Bill of Rights?
my take away is this, as long as we allow states to market lotteries then the idea that private companies should be held to differing rules is wrong. either all play on a level playing field or none play. considering the misery many state lotteries are said to bring I don't see how they can stand there smug except the fact they have the courts and police power to get away with it.
A loot box is literally "Pay $1 and see what you get!", and there are percentages behind what you can get (unknown to us). It's literally no different than buying a lottery ticket, except you always get something (maybe equivalent to the value of the lottery ticket) with a chance of getting something more valuable.
Now maybe they are adjusting lootbox percentages on the back-end so too many people don't get something unique if that's how you are trying to claim it's a raffle.. but I still don't think that makes it anywhere near the definition of a raffle.
Maybe a better answer is why we ban gambling at all. There are people who have a problem with it, but maybe a better solution is to get them help to break the cycle instead of banning it in some cases but not others.
I think the problem is we don't know the exact point when a pleasure becomes a problem. Or, how to effectively help people even if we did know when they crossed a line.
Society will pay a price somewhere. It's just right now, we seem more willing to curtail our freedom in that area than we are to help those who make mistakes.
There are huge social consequences to gambling. If you look at an entire society you have some people that will have problems with it and some people that won't. You may fall into the "won't" pile but surely society benefits if we prevent a large number of our members from falling prey to addiction.
https://www.predictit.org/support/faq
Why is there an $850 limit to how much I can buy on any one contract?
PredictIt operates under no-action relief from the Division of Market Oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. An $850 limit on investment by an individual participant in any contract is a condition of this relief.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/olc/file/1121531/download
[2] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/201...