This ruling does not mean that Michigan will automatically allow internet gambling with all of its casinios and tribal casinos but the possibility for that change is now there as the Snyder administration and lawmakers are expected to investigate the issue further.

Internet gambling is the future of the casino industry, whether it’s approved at the federal or state level, a panel of online and brick-and-mortar casino executives said Tuesday.

And a New Jersey lawmaker predicted there will be a ballot question next year asking his state’s residents whether to amend the state Constitution to allow Internet gambling.

Speaking at the East Coast Gaming Congress, executives from two online betting organizations and Caesars Entertainment said the Internet provides the gambling industry its best opportunity for growth. But the prospect of a federal law permitting it appears dim in light of recent federal raids on online gambling sites.

More at ABC News.

It contends U.S. crackdowns against foreign betting sites are illegal and protectionist, since gambling for money is permitted in U.S. casinos and since online betting is allowed for state-regulated horse racing in the United States.

More details about the Antigua claim at Reuters.

• An editorial in the LA Times, suggests that a federal crackdown on Internet poker sites isn’t a good bet for solving problems with online gambling.
  

  The bigger question is whether taking down the U.S. operations of three global websites will solve whatever problem Congress was trying to solve when it declared a prohibition on most forms of Internet gambling. U.S. authorities are swimming against a powerful tide of contrary policies overseas — online gambling is a multibillion-dollar business welcomed by several countries, including England and Ireland. And trying to fence off America from a popular part of the Internet only invites people to find new ways around the law.

• Wynn Resorts said, the company terminated its agreement with PokerStars. Less then a month ago, billionaire Steve Wynn has announced he is joining up with PokerStars, the world’s biggest online gaming company, to establish a strategic relationship that aims to regulate online poker in the U.S.  The original plan was for
  

  PokerStars and Wynn Resorts plan to work together to secure the passage of federal legislation that will regulate online poker in the U.S. with an eye toward setting up a joint venture, PokerStarsWynn.com, that will offer for-money online poker play in the U.S.

“We are aware of the indictment only through what has been announced publicly,” Bristol, Connecticut-based ESPN said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “For the immediate future, we are making efforts to remove related advertising and programming pending further review.”

On Friday, 11 people, including the founders of the three largest online poker companies doing business in the U.S.—PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker—were charged with offenses including bank fraud, money laundering and online-gambling offenses.

Yesterday, Bradley Franzen, one of 11 people charged last week with being part of an online gambling conspiracy, pleaded not guilty before a U.S. magistrate in New York.

Franzen, 41, of Illinois and Costa Rica, is accused of lying to banks about the nature of the transactions they were processing, and of creating fake companies and websites to disguise payments to poker companies.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have alleged the poker companies, which are located outside the U.S., tried to sidestep U.S. laws prohibiting banks and credit card issuers from processing gambling payments by disguising billions of dollars from U.S. gamblers as payments to nonexistent online merchants for golf balls, jewelry, flowers and other merchandise.

This crackdown is far stronger than any seen from the Bush administration, and is disappointing for those who had hoped for a better stance on civil liberties from the Obama administration. The Poker Players Alliance issued the following statement after the busts

On behalf of the millions of poker players across the country, we are shocked at the action taken by the U.S. Department of Justice today against online poker companies and will continue to fight for Americans’ right to participate in the game they enjoy. Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such. We are currently gathering all of the information around today’s announcement and will offer detailed analysis when the full facts become available.

Source: PPA

New York prosecutors say they’ve issued restraining orders against more than 75 bank accounts in 14 countries used by the poker companies, which they say will interrupt the illegal flow of billions of dollars, according to The Associated Press.

Eleven individuals were charged over their involvement running PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker for violating the 2006 Unlawful  Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

The Justice Department has filed a civil complaint for money laundering that seeks $3 billion being held by the companies.

According to a federal indictment, the owners of the companies sought ways to get around restrictions placed on U.S. banks that prohibited them from handling financial transactions connected to online gambling.

“Some of the defendants found banks willing to flout the law for a fee,” Janice Fedarcyk, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, said in a prepared statement. “The defendants bet the house that they could continue their scheme, and they lost.”

Federal prosecutors and FBI agents also have obtained a district court order to block 76 bank accounts and five Internet domain names associated with the poker websites.

“This is a potentially game-changing moment for the online poker industry, as PokerStars and Full Tilt are, by quite some distance, the two largest operators not just in the U.S., but globally,” James Kilsby, Americas editor with the business intelligence service GamblingCompliance, told ABC News.

“Previous DOJ enforcement efforts have honed in on sports betting operators and payment companies,” Kilsby said. “Meanwhile, some of the poker operators themselves have claimed that U.S. gambling laws do not apply to poker. It seems clear from today’s action that the Justice Department doesn’t agree.”

More/Source

St. Paul resident Chris Wallace said he makes about $2,000 a week playing poker online, enough to support himself, his fiancée and his dog. He’s not about to stop, even as Minnesota officials take new steps to try to crack down on online gambling.

“I have e-mailed the Justice Department, and I’ve volunteered to be arrested,” said Wallace, 35, who left college because online poker was taking up so much of his time. “I play online poker. Come and get it.”

The state of Minnesota wants to do just that. A division of the state Department of Public Safety that enforces gambling and alcohol laws said Wednesday that it has instructed 11 national and regional telephone and Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access by all Minnesota-based computers to nearly 200 gambling websites.

Minnesota, citing a 1961 federal anti-gambling law, says all online gambling within its borders is illegal, even if the games are hosted outside the United States.

“We are putting site operators and Minnesota online gamblers on notice and in advance,” says John Willems, director of the state’s Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division. “State residents with online escrow accounts should be aware that access to their accounts may be jeopardized and their funds in peril.”

Full story at: startribune.com

The unanimous decision by three judges of division I of the appeals court says that Rousso would have to show that policing Internet poker imposes excessive burdens and not worth the state’s commitment to regulating gaming.

“Ultimately, given the importance of the state’s interest in protecting its citizens from the ills associated with gambling, and the relatively small cost imposed on out-of-state businesses by complying…Rousso has failed to meet his burden….”

Rousso said appeals court rejected many of the state’s arguments in the case, so he is leaning in favor of taking the case to the state Supreme Court…

While in New Jersey, a group representing gaming and horse-racing industries in New Jersey filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to overturn a federal law that bans sports betting in New Jersey and most other U.S. states.

The suit filed against the federal government claims the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 violates five amendments to the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against the people of New Jersey and by regulating a matter that should be reserved to the states.

Gaming is an important industry in New Jersey, with 11 casinos located in Atlantic City. New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine told reporters the initiative to legalize sports betting was “worth pursuing” and would boost Atlantic City if it happened.

Attorneys for a trade association for the gambling web sites countered that Kentucky lacks the authority to make that move because the domain names aren’t property and, besides, they are based offshore and beyond Kentucky’s jurisdiction.

A three-judge appeals court panel in Kentucky is now weighing whether a state can seized a web site domain name to curtail gambling within its borders, even if it means cutting the rest of the world off from the site.

The question arose after Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate ruled in October that the state’s lawsuit seeking to block Kentuckians’ access to more than 140 online casinos could go forward. Wingate also ruled that he planned to hold a hearing about whether the state could seize the web sites.

The hearing has not been held pending the outcome of the appeal heard Friday.

The state sued the web sites after determining that they allowed Kentuckians to gamble illegally and asked a judge to either force the sites to block Kentucky users or allow the state to take possession of the domain names. Kentucky already allows gambling on horse racing and bingo and has a state lottery.

Attorneys for the state and the web sites estimated that about 13,000 people in Kentucky use the online casinos.

William Johnson, who represents five of the web sites, said Kentucky’s laws do not spell out that the state can seize domain names. Because lawmakers haven’t acted since the law was written in 1974, the state lacks the authority to seize the web sites and shut them down, Johnson said.

“If they had wanted to correct this law, they could have done so annually,” Johnson said. “That is a matter for the legislature to decide.”

Attorney Jon L. Fleischaker, who represents Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association, Inc., an online gambling trade association, said that by trying to seize the web sites, Kentucky was aiming to apply a criminal penalty to a civil proceeding.

“What they have done is turn the law on its head,” Fleischaker said. “If they want to bring a criminal case, they should bring a criminal case.”

Eric Lycan, who represented the Kentucky Justice Cabinet, referred to the online gambling sites as a “massive, global, offshore criminal enterprise” whose owners know they are violating the laws of nearly every state in the country by fostering gambling via the Internet.

More than 80 percent of the revenue generated by the web sites comes from the United States, giving any state willing to try jurisdiction over the sites, Lycan said.

“They are doing this because they don’t think anyone can catch them,” Lycan said.

Judge Michelle Keller asked Lycan why the state doesn’t handle the illegal gambling the same way it handles illegal drug transactions — by making both the sale, purchase and use of the drugs against the law.

“It’s illegal to sell the drugs and it is also illegal to use the drug,” Keller said. “I don’t see much of a difference here.”

Lycan said the decision to only criminalize the offering of gambling was a decision made by lawmakers.

“The legislature specifically exempted the player from the legislation,” Lycan said.

There is a great Op-ed piece by Rich Muny, the Kentucky state director of the Poker Players Alliance, that best describes the lunacy of this idea:

Gov. Steve Beshear recently pushed a case through a state circuit court ordering the seizure of 141 Internet gambling sites’ domain names, stating that his intention is to prevent these sites from offering services to Kentuckians.

This radical approach is disturbing for many reasons.

The concept that domain names of Internet sites operating legally in their home nations can be seized by other nations for violation of local laws is one that should concern all Americans.

For example, should CNN’s Internet domain name be at risk if CNN posts an article critical of Cuba that Cuba finds unlawful? Should Focus on the Family’s domain name be eligible for seizure by Saudi Arabia for articles questioning Muhammad’s status as the greatest prophet?

If so, imagine the chilling effect this would have on the Internet. If Beshear succeeds, a very dangerous precedent will be set.

Many inaccurate statements have been made regarding online poker, including ones mischaracterizing the online poker community as being opposed to regulation and taxation.

The Poker Players Alliance, a grass-roots poker advocacy group with more than 1 million members, has been actively promoting legislation implementing regulation and licensing of online poker in the United States. This common sense approach would provide jobs and revenue in the United States while subjecting offshore sites participating in the U.S. market to U.S. regulations and providing strong consumer protections.

Beshear’s position? He recently stated his opposition to regulated online poker.

When Beshear said that “unlicensed Internet gambling significantly undermines and threatens horseracing … by creating unregulated and untaxed competition,” he mischaracterized online poker.

Poker is a game of skill in which enthusiasts match wits. It could not be any more different from horse racing, and it’s difficult to imagine money flowing from horse racing to the unrelated activity of poker. Additionally, Internet poker is not unregulated. The sites are fully regulated in their home jurisdictions. Also, online poker is not untaxed. Poker income is taxed at the state and federal levels.

The industry itself is not taxed because Kentucky chooses not to levy a tax. The industry is not regulated by the state because Kentucky has chosen not to license and regulate poker sites.

Beshear said that “unlicensed, unregulated, illegal Internet gambling poses a tremendous threat to the citizens of the Commonwealth because of its ease, availability and anonymity,” but this is not true of online poker.

There is no state law identifying online poker as an unlawful activity. Rather, state law identifies games of chance, not games of skill, as illegal. [Same as Federal Law, BFA Edit Note]

As for claims of anonymous play, poker sites carefully track and verify the identities and ages of all participants by using verification systems equal to those used by youbet.com and twinspires.com, two state-sanctioned, U.S.-based Internet sites for wagering on horse races.

If the “ease, availability and anonymity” of the state-sanctioned sites are acceptable, surely those of online poker should be acceptable as well.

In fact, the casinos Beshear championed in his run for office would have offered far more ease and anonymity than online poker sites offer, with roughly the same availability.

Poker players are not sitting back and taking this without speaking out. They have flooded Beshear’s office with hundreds of letters and phone calls, and they will continue this as long as Beshear continues his assault on the Internet and personal freedom.

If Beshear really wants to stop unregulated online poker, he should do it the democratic way. He ought to introduce legislation implementing regulation and licensing of online poker, giving Kentuckians the chance to decide on this issue. It sure beats destroying the Internet via the courts.

Original: Kentucky.com