PPA challenges Washington State’s online casino laws

• Author: News2
• Filed under: Online poker
• Date: Jun 1,2010

In the US the laws differ from state to state. Washington State, for instance, has a law that bans all gambling in the Internet - online poker as well as online casino gambling.

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has challenged the validity of this particular law, and now the case will be on trial at the highest Court level of the State (the Washington State Supreme Court). According to PPA’s Lee Rousson this Washington law is contrary to the Commerce Act. The Commerce Act exists to ensure that the states cannot set laws which would discriminate only some particular sections of the industry. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned law in Washington State is against the online section of the gambling industry.

PPA notes that people can easily go to the casino to play poker and other games without committing any crime, but for some reason doing the same from your home computer is classified as criminal action. The ones who benefit from this current law are mainly the casinos of Washington who are not willing to compete with their online equivalents.

Thomas Goldstein, who represented the online gambling industry in the Court, was wondering how under these circumstances the State of Washington can allow online betting on the horses. The prosecutor was also asked whether these games were the same that they already offer in Indian casinos? The prosecutor answered that the operation of Indian-owned casinos was based on a special status which has been specified in the federal state law.

Source: online-casinos