Black Friday

By Shari Geller
 
The president of M Resort, Anthony Marnell III, recently joined Sheldon Adelson, Chairman of the Sands Corporation, in announcing his opposition to the legalization and regulation of online poker in the United States.  In a time when the efforts towards bringing online poker back to the U.S. is under attack from the religious right, the morality police and skittish lawmakers, opposition from those within the gambling family comes as a heavy blow.
 
The interview with Marnell was conducted Nevada Newsmakers, a statewide public affairs television program, on December 13, just a few days before the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) issued a statement reversing its earlier position that the Wire Act made online poker illegal.  In the DoJ’s published opinion letter, the federal government claimed that the Wire Act did not apply to online poker. 
 

by Stanley R. Sludikoff, Publisher
[Read Part 1 Read Part 2]
 
There is no doubt that the United States of America has unclean hands in this mess. First Congress failed to protect its citizens when they knew that millions were playing poker on the internet. Instead a small minority of senators and representatives, who were seeking to legislate morality as they saw it, looked for a simple way to stop people from gambling on the internet.

 
By Shari Geller
 
Fewer than two weeks after the Department of Justice issued its opinion letter establishing that the Wire Act did not make all online gambling illegal, New Jersey is again moving toward legalizing online poker in the state.  Last year, the New Jersey legislature passed legislation intended to make it the first state to legalize and regulate intrastate poker, but Governor Chris Christie vetoed the bill citing a number of “significant concerns” with the legislation, including the constitutionality of the proposed law.
 

by Lou Krieger

Happy New Year, poker players. It’s time to look deep into my crystal ball and see what 2012 has in store for us.

 My crystal ball isn’t as clear as I’d like it to be, so I’m going to hedge my bets by telling you that these predictions will come true either in 2012 or 2013. I’m not sure when it will all come to pass, but I do predict that all of this will happen. I predict online poker will become licensed and regulated within the United States, although it won’t happen first at the Federal level. Instead, individual states will take the lead on this issue, and as soon as one state enacts legislation that makes legalized and regulated online poker a reality within their borders, other states will rush into this game.

By Shari Geller
 
The Friday before Christmas, the Department of Justice unsealed a three-month-old decision on the legality of online poker under the 1961 Wire Act.   The statement, dated September 20, was issued partly in response to a request by Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and John Kyl (R-AZ) earlier this year for clarification on the applicability of the Wire Act to Internet poker.  The Senators did not get the answer they were after.  Instead, reversing its earlier position that the Act applied to all forms of online gambling, this new opinion states that the DoJ believes that only sports betting is prohibited under the Wire Act.
 

by Wendeen H. Eolis

Add the New York Times to the list of venerable mainstream media outlets that have bungled material facts and succumbed to confusing messages that emanate from the US Government’s crackdown on online poker.

by Stanley R. Sludikoff, Publisher
 
 In the last issue, I explained that there are six different entities that bear responsibility for this sorry state of affairs [Read Part 1]. Because of their current actions, I will skip to Entity No. 2, Alderney. To their credit, Alderney heard the criticism and is now looking into its role in the matter through an investigation conducted by a distinguished English authority.

An Editorial: By Stanley R. Sludikoff

Six score years ago a vibrant American gaming industry was erased from the scene by a scandal.  It was the second time that happened in US history.  This one was due to a corrupt Louisiana Lottery that was national in scope.  The operators were a gang of crooks.  The result was a series of laws by Congress that pretty much killed gaming for nearly 5 decades in this country.

It took a long time for gaming to come back and it has now grown to massive proportions with the majority of states having lotteries and casinos.