I think the United States Department of Justice may have just become every gambler’s favorite federal agency. Now that may be a little hard to believe considering their track record over the last year. After all it was the DOJ and the FBI who shut down four top online poker rooms in the US on April 15th of this year. Oh, players were angry. Especially poker players who had accounts in those four online poker rooms. But it must be said that the DOJ was just doing their job.
And the Department of Justice wanted to be sure that they were doing their job correctly, otherwise justice wasn’t being properly taken care of. So the DOJ reviewed what they’d been asked to do. Mostly they reviewed the Wire Act of 1961. So, why review a 50 year old act? Well, see that’s the act that actually made online gambling illegal. Not the UIGEA or Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. That act just said that the DOJ had to enforce the law where internet gambling was illegal. So, if internet gambling isn’t illegal, the UIGEA doesn’t work very well.
Guess what? The Department of Justice has decided that the Wire Act of 1961 only applies to Sports Betting, which is why it was written. Not to online gambling, which didn’t exist in 1961, so now the US still has to create laws that apply to online gambling. Which means states like Nevada aren’t violating the Wire Act (and federal law) if they allow online gambling, particularly online poker rooms.
Now, players are being advised to be cautious when it comes to online gambling because right now, we’re likely to see an increase in bad casinos opening their doors to US players. Which is why there needs to be some online gambling legislation to determine how a good casino operates in the US. But keep in mind that we’ve already carefully examined and rated the online casinos we list. Stay safe. Play safe.