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 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 Lou Krieger and Shari Geller
 
 
Nevada recently became the first state in the country to adopt online gaming regulations when the Nevada Gaming Commission recently passed rules to govern online poker.
 
These regulations were adopted unanimously in response to a mandate by the state legislature requiring the commission to adopt regulations before the end of January 2012. Nevada’s goal is to continue being the gold standard for gaming in the United States.
 

by I. Nelson Rose

 “If you don’t know who the sucker is at the poker table, it’s you.” —Poker Proverb

 Joe Barton does not believe in science. He doesn’t even believe in facts. He is a typical Tea Party Republican Congressman from Texas: Barton is proud of what he calls his “100 percent” approval rating from the Christian Coalition (actually, it is 91 percent). He’s anti-gambling.

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.

Greed is dangerous. But combine it with stupidity and arrogance, and it can be lethal.

Some of the insiders of Full Tilt Poker appear to have taken one of the most profitable businesses ever created and needlessly run it into the ground. Along the way, they got themselves indicted and sued in gigantic civil lawsuits. And they deprived hundreds of thousands of online poker players of hundreds of millions of dollars.