Online Gambling News

Date: 05/04/2009

In a move that is causing some overly sarcastic internet personalities to label Minnesota as being the “Kentucky of 2009”, the state legislators have attempted to block the presence of online gambling inside the state boundaries. Specifically, they have ordered 11 different Internet Service Providers (ISPs for short) to cease and desist with the allowance of 200 different online gambling domain names and instead start blocking them from use by residents in Minnesota.

The move comes after the director of Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement in the State of Minnesota, a man named John Willems, decreed that there was anecdotal evidence in favor of the idea that land-based casinos in Minnesota were being hurt by online gambling. He did not provide any real evidence to support the anecdotal evidence, even at the same time as reporters were citing a Price Waterhouse Coopers study showing that federal government revenue from legalization and taxation on online gambling would be around $50 billion over 10 years if such actions were taken.

The State of Minnesota is using a law passed by the federal government in 1961 forcing entities referred to as “common carriers” to remove any service in telecommunications that was used specifically for gambling purposes. That having been said, the 11 ISPs discussed in the ban attempt are not common carriers, because they are not legally bound by any particular convention to carry everything over the internet, something that is an express requirement in the 1961 act the state is citing.

At the same time, other critics have pointed out that the spirit of the law is being misunderstood here, perhaps even on purpose by the state. The 1961 act was put into place in order to prevent problems caused when telecommunications companies were doing business with the same betting services that they were broadcasting. Since online gambling is illegal in the United States, there are no connections between the 11 ISPs and the online gambling industry. For this reason and the one stated in the preceding paragraph, it is expected that this particular case will be thrown out of court in short order.