Informative piece on legalities of Online Sportsbetting

[Daft]

There is a lot of confusion as to the legality of online sportsbetting.

This is short, to the point and very informative:




Placing a wager on sports is totally legal at the federal level in the US and is not governed by the Wire Act. The act of accepting wagers is what is covered by the wire act, an important distinction.

Let me quote the ruling that has stood since Nov 25, 1981 and has never been challenged (USA vs Robert Baborian 528 F.Supp 324 paragraph 5):

Congress intended the "business of gambling" to mean bookmaking, i.e. the taking and laying off of bets, and not mere betting. The provocative question is whether this is still the proper definition when the bettor wagers substantial sums and displays the sophistication of an expert in his knowledge of odds making. This court concludes that the statute simple does not covers such a situation. This court finds that Congress never intended to include a social bettor within the prohibition of the statute and that Congress did not contemplate prohibiting the activities of mere bettors, even where, as with Mr Baborian, they bet large sums of money with a great deal of sophistication.



The truth of the matter is that the DOJ does interpret the law the way I stated it, and that is evidenced by the fact that there has not been a single prosecution at the Federal level since the case I cited (USA vs Baborian 1981). Not one single bettor has been brought up on federal charges since 1981 unless there was tax evasion, money laundering, or RICO thrown at them. The Wire Act simply applies only to those in the business of gambling, and as defined by the judicial system that means someone who TAKES bets. The following are some articles on the subject - keep in mind when reading them that when they say sportsbetting is illegal under the wire act - the key definition is that of someone "in the business of gambling" which has been defined to exclude the person placing bets.


Online Poker Legal? - Internet Gambling Law and Poker Online

http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Feder...s/wire-act.htm

http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006sprin...e/federal.html (important pertinent text quoted in italics below - its about the 4th paragraph in the link)


Criticisms of the Wire Act’s Applicability to Online Gambling


In the Business of Betting or Wagering

Even if the Wire Act is shown to apply to internet gambling it would only apply to gambling operators, since it expressly states that it applies only to those “engaged in the business of betting or wagering.” 18 U.S.C. 1084, U.S. Code Collection, Cornell Law School , at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ht...4----000-.html . Obviously, this would exclude individual bettors from any liability under the Act. This point is fairly uncontroversial, and is supported by the language of Congressman Emanuel Celler, then Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who stated during debate on the Act that “[t]his bill only gets after the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets. . . It does not go after the causal gambler.” Jeffrey R. Rodefer, Internet Gambling in Nevada : Overview of Federal Law Affecting Assembly Bill 466, 8-13, athttp://web.archive.org/web/20040303190351/http:/ag.state.nv.us/hottopics/int_gamb_nv.pdf (quoting United States v. Baborian, 528 F. Supp. 324, 328 (D.R.I. 1981) (quoting 107 Cong.Rec. 16,534 (1961))).


At the state level, certain states HAVE specific laws that make gambling illegal. Even other states (Nevada (understandably), California, Louisiana, and Washington) have specifically made online gambling illegal.

http://www.gamblingandthelaw.com/col...Online_Bet.



Again, this is all at the federal level. Every state is different on their state statutes with regards to gambling, but they are generally considered to be soft laws (those states that have online gambling laws) considering the lack of effort to even enforce them. But the federal law is clear to anyone who does not have an agenda, take bets and you are in trouble, place bets and you are ok.