You don’t have to be a gun-toting libertarian survivalist from Wisconsin to wonder exactly what American law enforcement hopes to achieve by continuing to chase online poker providers.
The war against online gambling in the United States is won—for now at least. But like a pack of wolves federal lawyers keep nipping at the ankles of their prey even as the prey is slinking off with its tail between its legs seeking fresh territory in Asia and other emerging regions.
According to IGaming News, Uncle Sam is freshly on the trail of payment services companies for some of the biggest brands of online poker. The reason is the United States government is attempting to seize over USD30 million in payouts owed to around 27,000 American online poker players. Federal authorities reason that if Internet gambling is illegal in the US then US citizens cannot lawfully keep money won from Internet gambling, no matter how they went about accessing the websites.
The targets include payment houses serving PokerStars and Full Tilt—understood to be the two biggest online poker brands in the world by turnover. The brands have both been working hard to build new markets outside the US. PokerStars for example, which is licensed in the Isle of Man, an offshore jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, has marketing links to the recently opened poker room at Dr Stanley Ho’s Grand Lisboa, and feeds players to the Asia Pacific Poker Tour.
IGaming News says that last week, Citibank, Wells Fargo and two other banks were ordered to freeze money in accounts belonging to Account Services and Allied Systems, according to federal documents obtained by the online gaming publication. Both companies process payments for online poker operators, including PokerStars and Full Tilt. The latter said on its web site that funds belonging to affected players “remain safe and secure.”
The action was reportedly brought by the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, on the grounds the funds are proceeds of illegal gambling activity.
The Poker Players Alliance, a player advocacy group, said in a press release that the funds belong to players, not operators, and therefore do not represent gambling proceeds.
“This money should be immediately released by the Southern District to ensure that player payouts are not further disrupted,” the release said.
If the aim of the US Attorneys office is to prevent tax evasion caused by betting and betting settlement being executed online and offshore then destroying what in turnover terms was one of the world’s biggest online gaming markets ought to do the trick. There’s no industry left to tax. During the Cold War, when the US and the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear missiles pointing at each other, that was known as the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.
If the aim is to protect public morals then it’s pretty rum that the most socially conservative administrators, politicians and communities in the US are able to impose their will on everyone else using the agency of the central government. AGI thought the battle against the oppression of the many by the few had been won first in the American Revolutionary War against the British and then conclusively during the American Civil War
The bigger picture is that the part of the US legal system responsible for organising public prosecutions is a patchwork quilt of overlapping state and federal jurisdictions stocked with ambitious lawyers looking to make a name for themselves. They often need to win over social lobbyists (such as anti-gambling, anti-smoking groups) in order to be voted into public office. In that context, gambling is just another soft target. If you’re a smoker who likes to play online poker and you’re good enough at Texas Hold’em to win prizes, Lord help you if you live in the ‘Land of the Free’.
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