DOJ opinion ‘important day’ in efforts to legalize online gaming
By Karoun Demirjian, Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON — A Department of Justice opinion released last week declares that Internet gaming transactions are legal between states where gambling is legal.
The opinion appears to open the door for multiple states with legalized gaming to band together and create online gambling zones across state lines — provided they don’t involve sports betting.
Advocates for legalizing online gambling have focused on getting Congress to overturn the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which made it illegal for banks to process Internet bets for prohibited forms of gaming. The 13-page opinion by DOJ Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz does not discuss how the Wire Act intersects with UIGEA.
But Richard Bronson, chairman and co-founder of California-based U.S. Digital Gaming, called the opinion a sea-change in the federal government’s approach to online gaming.
“This is a very important day,” said Bronson, whose company develops online gaming technology. “It has always been considered to be illegal under the Wire Act.”
Seitz reviewed the 1961 Wire Act to address whether state lottery operators in New York and Illinois could sell tickets online if the routers and networks processing those transactions were out of state, in places like Texas, Maryland and Nevada.
