WA Law Means Linking to Gambling Websites Illegal

tpoker writes "Following a previous story on Washington State making online gambling a felony, the Seattle Times reports that the first legal salvos have begun. 'The first casualty in the state's war on Internet gambling is a local Web site where nobody was actually doing any gambling. What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. All that, says the state -- the ads, the linking, even the discussing -- violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit 'gambling information ... Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it -- that's all obviously enabling something that is illegal.'"

Re:Plus Side?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Maybe this will provide some legal leverage to go after people who spam blogs and forums with adds for online poker, etc?

Don't count on it. WA state laws have no effect on blogs and/or bloggers located in other states, much less the activities of casinos located outside the USA. How could a state law (not even a federal one) have any impact on a casino operator operating in the Dominican Republic?

Re:Sounds a lot like the DMCA...

[plasmacutter]

The diff is one is a pet law of some minor political goons and local tribes, the other is the pet law of a massive lobbying juggernaut with a vicelike grip on legislators at the federal level and a sustained propaganda campaign aimed at judges and the general public.

When you can get away with using a single subpoena to prosecute 500 unrelated cases at once in violation of due process amendments, keeping your pet laws in place is just pocket change.

Re:By the logic of WA lawmakers...

[kfg]

AOL added the word "breast" to their filters

There are no bad words. Only fucking idiots.

KFG

Re:As a UK Tax payer...

[shawnce]

I'd like to thank the US for these restrictive laws that prevent US companies making money out of internet gambling.

You do realize this is a law in one state [census.gov] out of the fifty states () that make up the United States of America... a state the represents about 2.1% of the total population of the United Stated of America.

Also it is very likely that this law will be found unconstitutional in part or whole at federal level (if not at the state level).

Re:Who is this law trying to save?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Who is this law trying to save?

It's intention is to save tax dollars. Every state in the US collects taxes from any legal casinos, bingo parlors, etc. located within their borders (this includes any casinos on indian reservations). Since these on-line casinos are located outside the US there's no way to collect taxes. That's one of the reasons why the federal government still has laws on the books about this. Ever since early 20th century it's been technically illegal to place any wager by electronic means in which the wager crosses state lines.

Re:As a UK Tax payer...

[kfg]

Keep up the good work, why not try prohibition again as well?

We did. We changed its focus, thinking that would make a difference somehow.

Columbia thanks us.

KFG

Re:By the logic of WA lawmakers...

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Actually if you RTFA it's more like just discussing child porn (or any illegal activity). Linking to a site about the illegal activity doesn't appear to be necessary. Apparently the WA state law makes it illegal to transmit "gambling information." (nice & vague, ain't it?) The state is interpreting that to mean things like reviews of gambling sites are illegal. Even if the site didn't link to the reviewed gambling site I'd bet they'd just say "well people could easily find the website by searching for it on Google".

Online Petition Started

[terrymr]

Washington residents please add your signature [petitiononline.com]

Re:freedom of speech

[stratjakt]

Talking about it and linking to it are different things. The guy could have talked about the sites all he wanted, referred to them by name, and so on..

He didn't cross the line until he explicitly linked to one.

High Times doesn't get in any trouble for talking about weed, but if they started running ads for dealers willing to ship to the US... Trouble's afoot. Plenty of sites have been burned for linking to "seed banks" outside the US.

Freedom of speech doesn't imply freedom of action. So sad, too bad.

Re:Plus Side?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

What happens when a bank robber flees to the Dominican Republic? Do we throw up our hands and say 'well, he's just too damn wily for us!'?

No, but in that case it's up to federal law enforcement to deal with it. As soon as they cross outside of the state of WA it becomes a federal offense. Once they cross the US border it becomes an issue for both US and foriegn federal law enforcement officials. It's the federal government that has extradition laws, not each state. Since there's no corresponding federal law on the books there's nothing WA police can do to casino operators in the Dominican Republic. And considering online gambling is apparently legal in the Dominican Republic I also doubt the any extradition treaties we have with them would be valid. Extradition treaties deal with issues that are illegal in both countries (murder, bank robbery, etc), not social issues that may be legal in one country and illegal in the other.

Re:Plus Side?

[tinkerghost]

Per the obscenity lawsuits, the crime happens whereever they decide they can get the most favorable verdict.
IE., a prosecuter in WA can decide that the Nevada site www.poker-n-prostitutes.com [not real (I hope)] violates the WA statute & initiate an extradition request for the owner of the site.
Personnally I think this is a waste of time since it's going to be hammered on the 1st ammendment level. But that's government for you, if they have the choice to do something or to create a worthless law to waste everyones time & interfier with our lives ... they don't have to think long before starting to start protecting us from ourselves.
Check out CNN [cnn.com] .... guy was just charged with aiding his wife to commit suicide by
...
wait for it
getting out of the minivan at a reststop.
Yep, I am thinking bikini atol is starting to sound nicer every week. What's a little cancer compaired to this kind of crap.

Re:Hope you guess my name?

[pudge]

Yes, the first one is mine.