THIS statute happens to be the statute that the DOJ has fallen back on to effect seizures/forfeitures of online poker sites now that the Wire Act is off the table, so if this ruling is upheld on appeal, the DOJ will be left with only the dangerous precedent (as unlike the IGBA, it doesn't hold mere gamblers harmless) of using the Travel Act to prosecute online poker sites.

Without this statute, the Federal government could be left with nothing more than a few hoops players are required to jump through to circumvent the UIGEA prohibiting offshore sites from offering poker in the US.

Regardless of how the appeal is decided likely next year, the fact that this decision will be looming over Congress throughout the lameduck session of Congress is a huge deal, as doing nothing may no longer be considered a 'conservative' option.

+1 TA.

I would suspect that the existing sites still supporting US play are happy. Barring bank fraud there's realty nothing stopping them except in states where it's clearly illegal.

That will force Congress to act to protect US company interests.

The judge said, in no uncertain terms, that poker is gambling under New York law: "The argument [that poker is not gambling under New York law] is waived. In any event, it has no merit. New York courts have long considered that poker contains a sufficient element of chance to constitute gambling under that state’s laws." (p. 6) So, there is a possibility that some state laws somewhere look more like the federal statute, and this judge's opinion could be persuasive (i.e., not binding) authority for those states. But for the few states that have statutes that look more like New York's, the opinion is persuasive in the opposite direction.

Also, the "contingent event" (the cards dealt) is still not in the player's control, even though the outcome--winning or losing, and how much--is partially in the player's control (i.e., you can move someone off a better hand, or fold when drawing nearly dead to minimize loses, etc.). So it's not clear how much the opinion would help under the New Jersey definition of gambling.

Perhaps. I never ruled any of the above out.

However, it just makes things very murky at best. IT certainly doesn't set up poker as legal federally or nationwide, especially in many states.

Nationwide (or at least a substantial amount of states) legalized and regulated US poker will still require new federal legislation. Period. Smaller intrastate efforts may not, and they didn't before this ruling either. It certainly does make things a little easier... I guess.

No, but you can speed right passed a Federal agent and he can not pull you over unless he has suspicion of a Federal law violation, so to some degree, State law becomes irrelevant if State law enforcement has no way of 'seeing' the violation.

well any good news i'll take, thx

Made front page of MSNBC.COM

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...rnet-ante?lite

even has a poll asking about online poker legality with the vast majority voting pro-online poker

To be clear, I think this is a big win for poker. I think my post perhaps stressed more of the cautious side of cautiously optimistic than it should have.

There is still UIGEA.

But the UIGEA has no teeth (forfeiture remedy) for the Federal (or even State) government to use to try and get those giant checks they like to take pictures with, making it far less likely for them to waste any resources on an investigation.

Buzzkill

Problem as I see it is that unlicensed raked poker is still illegal in most if not all states.

Exactly and the UIGEA allows the federal government to intervene if an online game violates a state law.

I have a feeling this news is being blown out of preportion

L'chaim! says this great American.

Poker stars back in the US please.

What is the best and worst case scenerios with timelines if possible?

From just a couple above comments: You look at threads like this and see how uninformed and out of the loop poker players are and you start to understand why the masses and/or non-players think the way they do.
But it's not really a waste, DUCY?

In my opinion, the quite lucrative endeavor is what has driven their efforts.

So IGBA doesn't apply to Poker. UIGEA doesn't apply to poker. Shouldn't the PPA now go after the rules about banks not processing poker transactions?

The wire act doesn't apply which is different than the UIGEA, which as far as I know continues to apply to Internet poker.

Adanthar tells me that Judge Weinstein was on the litigation team for Brown v. Board of Education. [1]

This guy has an astonishing resume; it's worth reading about him just to see what a huge player he's been in the American judiciary for over 50 years.

Regards, Lee

[1] For the non-USers and young 'uns, this was the Supreme Court case in 1954 that declared the "separate but equal" treatment of African-Americans in the United States unconstitutional. It was the first crack in the wall that ultimately led to the election of Barack Obama in 2008. No Brown, no President Obama, imo.

He is 91 years young?
wowowowowow

The UIGEA, as it's name implies, is an enforcement act. It doesn't make any gambling illegal, it only enforces penalties for processing gambling transactions that are already been made illegal by another law. Thus, it still applies to any Internet poker that violates state law. However, given the DOJ's ruling this past December on the Wire Act not applying to Internet poker, along with this new ruling that poker doesn't violate the IGBA, it appears that offering Internet poker (and processing related transactions) does not currently violate any federal laws. Can any legal experts chime in and confirm whether this is true?

If so, is there anything stopping casinos (or foreign entities) from establishing poker sites in states where there are no laws against it? I understand that most states (maybe even all except Nevada and Delaware?) have laws that either explicitly or implicitly would ban online poker. Also, it seems like with this out of the way, there's now nothing stopping Nevada, Delaware and any other states that pass IP bills in the future (such as NJ or California) from creating interstate player pools without the need for Federal regulation.

I have tried to answer the basic questions that seem to get repeated over and over across the forums in a single place in the PPA forum. Since it is hard to keep posting the same thing again and again across the forums, I invite you to read what I have posted there and if you still have questions regarding the ramifications of this ruling, ask them there: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...skill-1237082/

Skallagrim

This judge is my new favourite person - intelligent arguments about poker, quotes Sherlock Holmes in his decision, plus Lee Jones post about his history. Love it.