U.S. Online Gambling Reversal Puts ‘Chill’ on Industry

January 15, 2019, Bloomberg, by Edvard Pettersson

(Dennis Gutwald provides insight on the U.S. Justice Department’s recent reversal of its opinion on Internet gambling)

The U.S. Justice Department’s decision to expand a federal prohibition on internet gambling will cast a pall on the industry as businesses and state lotteries evaluate the implications of the change and the government’s plans to enforce it.  The U.S. now says the U.S. Wire Act bars all internet gambling that involves interstate transactions, reversing its position from 2011 that only sports betting was prohibited under the law passed 50 years earlier.

While the federal law specifically prohibits transmission of wagers and related information across state lines, the Justice Department’s new interpretation will impact all online gambling because as a practical matter it’s difficult to guarantee that no payments are routed through other states, said Aaron Swerdlow, an attorney with Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro LLP in Los Angeles.  To read entire article click here.


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