Online Poker Now a Felony

Placing an Internet bet in Washington state — or even calling your bookie to make a wager — is now punishable by up to five years behind bars.

Washington is probably the only state to expressly make it a crime to merely bet online. It certainly is the only state to make it a felony. A "Class C felony" means a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Comments

[Martin Owens]

And just how do they propose to find out whether John Doe was playing Poker online, unless he's silly enough to tell them?
The online poker businesses will obviously not tell Washington State who their customers are, and the State can't subpoena somebody headquartered in Gibraltar or Antigua.
Even if it were legal to randomly sweep the Internet and the bank records for traces of it- where would they get the people and resources? Not even Stalin had that many cops.

( full disclosure: I am co-author of Prof. Rose's latest book INTERNET GAMING LAW ( 2005)).

[Dan]

I live in Washington, and I can tell you this is all about money, not morallity. The state government runs both a state lottery with bi-weekly drawings, and particiaptes in the bi-weekly powerball drawings. State run scratch ticket gambling is big business. We have several large tribal casinos with full vegas style gambling, as well as table games at non-tribal casinos.

In short, there is not shortage of opportunities to gamble in Washington, as long as the state gets their cut.