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Paul Martin Learn2Holdem Office 630 80 Broad Street New York New York, 10280 347-843-2749 |
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Summary: Leading authority on gambling and the gaming law argues about April’s online poker indictments by the FBI and the shutting down of US poker sites. He declares that the Department of Justice has been waging a war of intimidation, because there is neither a federal statute to make the activity illegal, nor any extradition treaty to bring the defendants to US soil.
Online PR News – 26-April-2011 –In a recent interview, one of the world’s leading authorities on gambling and the gaming law argues about the reasons behind the April 15th online poker indictments by the FBI and the shutting down of the four major US online poker sites. Professor I. Nelson Rose is an internationally known public speaker and expert witness (including the first NAFTA tribunal on gaming issues), currently a Distinguished Senior Professor at Whittier Law School .
Professor Rose questioned the motivation and strength of the Department of Justice (DOJ) accusations. He started by declaring, “The timing of these indictments is suspect. The grand jury has been meeting for at least one year and on the indictment itself, it is dated March 10th, but they did not release it until April 15th. Why now, what has happened?”
He continued, “There was a lot of movement in March and April to legalize Internet poker in particular. Two Nevada regulators approved the deal between Ceasars and 888 and then Steve Wynn announced a deal with Pokerstars. I think what is going on, at least part of this, is the Department of Justice has been waging a war of intimidation, quite successfully, to scare the players, operators, affiliates, and payment processors into not doing business in the United States.”
As online poker is not illegal in the United States, the DOJ is using the term ‘fraud’ as a scary word. But two important ingredients are missing to make a good prosecution according to Professor Rose: “You have to have a good statute to make the activity illegal and you have to have a defendant who is physically present in the United States.”
The problem for the DOJ is that the main federal anti-gambling statute, the ‘Wire Act’, only applies to sports betting and horse races. Now they are looking for other statutes such as the ‘Organized Crime Control Act’. But it remains to be seen if this Act or any other Federal Act can be used in this case.
With respect to the physical presence in the US, all operators are overseas and there are no good extradition treaties in place with the countries involved, such as the Isle of Man or Antigua. And even if there were, no government will extradite someone for conducting the business they license them for.
Regarding the frauds, the operators are accused of using payment processors while lying to the banks about the true nature of their transactions. The DOJ claims that they tricked the banks into making money, but none of the banks has ever been charged since the inception of the UIGEA in 2006.
From the players point of view the good news is that the money was frozen, which means it did not disappear. And the DOJ announced that pokerstars and full tilt are allowed to send their money back to all their US players. Meanwhile smaller operators like Carbon Poker continue to offer poker games in America.
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