https://www.onlinepokerreport.com/34...e-act-opinion/

Developing story.

Someone who is smart... translate


Does this mean our lovely country of the USA will bring back poker!?

ONE TIME!??

Likely changes nothing

It absolutely means nothing unless/until an enforcement action is taken against an operator, at which time the folks in the black robes will tell us what the Wire Act means and what it applies to

This actually means the exact opposite and is bad news for internet gambling.

However how meaningful it will be remains to be seen.

Also, your title is incorrect, this is a revision of opinion, not reversal of the wire act itself.

My bad. Please fix then

How disappointing

In my opinion (I am not a lawyer), it means that everything that's been said about how the 2011 DOJ interpretation of how the Wire Act applied exclusively to sports betting (and therefore paved the way for legalized, shared-liquidity iGaming/online poker) no longer applies.

Section II (Page 6): "The Criminal Division has asked us to reconsider our 2011 Opinion. We do not lightly depart from our precedent. But having reconsidered our conclusion, we now reach a different result. The 2011 Opinion, in our view, incorrectly interpreted the limitation “on any sporting event or contest” (the “sports-gambling modifier”) to apply beyond the second prohibition that it directly follows: the prohibition on transmitting “infor-mation assisting in the placing of bets or wagers.”

(Then it goes on to explain how the 2011 opinion misinterpreted the use of a "comma" in Section 1084 of the Wire Act, and gives a lesson on sentencing structure, and a lot of other grammar-related things.)

Section IV (Page 21): "Although the 2011 Opinion directly addressed the question now before us, we believe that the 2011 Opinion devoted insufficient attention to the statutory text and applicable canons of construction, which we believe compel the conclusion that the prohibitions of the Wire Act are not uniformly limited to sports gambling."

Like Curtis said, a lot of it comes down to enforcement or perceived threat of enforcement (if states choose on their own to refuse/disband future or existing compacts between them). I don't see that happening voluntarily between NJ/NV/DE. It might take an actual court ruling to determine what, if any online gambling activities, can be linked across state lines. But this opinion could put a serious hamper on Pennsylvania or other U.S. states linking up in the future.

In general, it's very bad news for regulated, licensed online poker/casino interests that wish to share liquidity in the statewide U.S. market. But again, I am not a lawyer and there are many people who have much more qualified insight than I do.

The document deals heavily with sentencing structure, grammar, and comes off as something more fit for a middle school English class than government doctrine. But I suppose Sheldon Adelson's CSIG can claim a victory. It's pretty disgusting after all the work that's been put into statewide regulated iGaming. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out.
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EDIT: Here are some of the replies from the corresponding Twitter thread on the OPR article. Chris Grove points out how "online bets almost inevitably cross state lines," which suggests that the new opinion could significantly impact existing intrastate iGaming as well... not only shared liquidity compacts.

https://twitter.com/OPReport/status/1084962871119888387

https://twitter.com/JRoVegas/status/1084969948768681984

Here's a separate Tweet by USBets COO Robert DellaFave, directed at CSIG's own Twitter announcement.

https://twitter.com/RobertDellaFave/...73949417607168
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I hate Sheldon Adelson.

With all these states legalizing sports betting, online lottery, online casinos etc, they should just change the freakin law and throw out the wire act.

Maybe we'll get lucky and they will. Or maybe ill never play online poker again. My goodness i miss 2008.

Not sure who this is addressed to, as neither poster could fix it, whereas you could have at that time. But if you wanted a mod to, that's what the Post Report button (red triangle to the left of every post) is for.

No worries for this thread now; I think I've fixed the title.

Well, I am a lawyer, and a gaming lawyer. I expect to be working on a few analysis pieces on this latest OLC 23 page opus forged on the canons of statutory construction in a results-driven process.

What is interesting to me however, aside from what hoops the Office of Legal Counsel jumped through in crafting this reversal, is what the market effect might be on the courage fostered originally among States and Operators by the first OLC interpretation.

No State moved online before the 1st OLC memo made them brave enough to do so, now 7 years later they've something to defend. In 2019 they perhaps prove less pusillanimous and more pugilistic than pre-2011.

The Wire Act has not changed since 1961. The existing case law addressing the scope of the Act prior to the 2011 OLC interpretation has not been affected. There are now an old OLC view and a new OLC view on the record but the Act has not been amended, not yet at least.

This will be an interesting political fight, as putting the State-level sports-betting and the State pooling of online poker genie back into the bottle might be more difficult than keeping them stillborn pre-2011 and pre-PASPA getting tossed out.

No man can ever step into the same stream twice.
Heraclitus of Epheus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus

The States are not the same as they were in 2010, nor is the market for services.

OLC cannot move the online gaming market back the same way it initially advanced things in 2011.

I've got some views on the future, but won't be posting them in detail online for free.

Well said.

not as eloquent as Robert DellaFave though

Is it possible for you to comment on how this opinion reversal effects specifically your views on the future(since you developed them prior to this) without revealing any details you don't want to reveal?

As I understand it, in short:
-Interstate sports betting has been illegal since 1961. That continues.

-Until 2011 (?) the DOJ believed that this ban extended beyond just sports betting. Then, they announced that they believed that this ban was restricted to just sports betting.

-The US Department of Justice now thinks that the ban extends beyond just sports betting again


This is not professional advice, and is worth every penny that you paid for it. If you want professional legal advice, go get a professional.

not gonna lie....I had to hit the google button for both of those. Were those words actually in your vocab?

If so, pretty impressive.

Bait and switch. you've got nothing kid with a dream.

Old school representin'

Thanks Josem, that's a great recap of this latest opinion reversal.

My question though was to Gzesh in regards to his secret but judging by the implications very intriguing vision about the future of internet gaming in US. This is a third time (at least) that he hinted at it on 2p2. I understand him not discussing it on public forums. But I was wondering if this opinion reversal has any negative (or maybe even positive, through possible legal confrontation that might be resolved positively and propel expansion) implications to his envisioned path into the future.

As someone who plays on WSOP.com in Nevada I am hopeful Ceasers has the guts to at least maintain the status quo and fight in court. Will be interesting to see if they end up getting a cease and desist and how they handle it.

I was pretty hopeful to be playing with Pennsylvania players this year and that the interstate market would continue to grow and that seems unlikely now.

I know in Nevada I can go into a casino and sign up for a mobile app and then make sports bets on my phone from anywhere in the state. This seems to me the casinos already decided that the wire act(and whatever gambling it covers) doesn't effect intrastate online gambling. If this is true, interstate poker seems to be the biggest loser from this reversal, and its such a small market.

My question is who wanted this so bad? Someone had to push to make the DOJ revisit this decision and write 20 pages about grammar to try and justify the reversal. Who do they want to take down? Interstate poker? Daily Fantasy Sport?

I hope we get some sort of statement from Ceasers on this and I don't go to play one day soon and get a message saying the sites been suspended. Blah, black Friday all over again.

Sheldon Adelson comes to mind.

His huge campaign contributions are paying off.

https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topindivs.php

This isn't even in question. Adelson has been paying off politicians to this end for over a decade.

Bob Goodlatte, Jim Leach, John Kyl, Bill Frist, Lindsay Graham, Jason Chaffetz. Among others...

This is a gift to a top campaign donor on one of his favorite pet projects. Literally the US Attorney General just crafted an opinion on a multi-billion dollar industry as a gift to a single individual.

Both have been used in popular culture.

"pusillanimous" came from Spiro Agnew, when he was Vice President, describing objectors to Nixon's Vietnam policies

http://gtotd.blogspot.com/2008/04/pu...syfooters.html

"Pugilist" was used in Young Guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehMJf-iCr-M

I'm old and remember a lot of crap without Google.

Here's an article from the Washington Post. It contains several quotes, including from a Justice Department official.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.183d784dfdca

"Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein will issue a memo Tuesday directing prosecutors to delay implementing the new opinion for 90 days, so that those who might be afoul of the law can review their operations and adjust. The official said the department will continue to prioritize cases against the most “egregious” offenders."

So 90 days in this case ends around April 15th again? Monday this time instead of Friday? That's what's being implied here, right?

Sheldon Adelson with all his connections and money is singlehandedly ruining online poker and has been for years. And yet massive amounts of poker players show up to his casino to play tournaments. It makes me sick. If there is ever a reason for all poker players to stand together and boycott a particular casino it should be that nobody show up to participate in any tournament in the Venetian.

So does this include online poker, online sports betting and DFS? I hope so because all 3 coming together can defeat Adelson. I'm curious, out of the states that legalized sports betting/online poker, which ones are democrat, republican. Could this be a negotiations ploy as far this gov shutdown is concerned?

I'm not sure what you think is being implied, but that would be the start date for any investigations, not the start date for issuing indictments.

Thanks for clearing that up.

It seems like it could definitely be the date that current operators decide its not worth it and close down operations.