Washington State: Online Poker is no Longer a Felony in Homes

[clevfan]

Washington State: Online Poker is no Longer a Felony in Homes

by PokerPages.com
Wed, Apr 25th, 2007 @ 12:00am

Washington State legislators last week passed Bill 1243 to correct excessive felony charges for online poker or online gambling when done in the privacy of a primary residence for recreation and not for organised profit.


State Rep. Chris Strow, R-Whidbey Island, introduced House Bill 1243 on Jan 15, 2007 to correct what he considers "an inappropriate penalty for an activity responsible adults should be allowed to do in the privacy of their home."


Strow at the time the bill was introduced stated, "Most certainly choosing to gamble, or play a game of skill such as poker, should not have been made a crime equivalent to possessing child pornography or threatening the Governor."


Under the state's 2006 internet gambling law, any online gambling in the state is a Class C Felony, which is the same penalty for possessing child pornography.


The Senate passed SB 1243 on 3 April with 45 yeas to 2 nays. The House followed suit on 17 April voting 62 yeas to 36 nays. So now, online gambling in the privacy of a home in Washington State is a legitimate defense against being convicted of a felony charge.


Other sponsors of the bill include Representatives Kirby, Upthegrove, B. Sullivan, Simpson, and Appleton.


Ironically, the bill does not apply to online operators of gambling or gambling information sites located in the State of Washington. They are regarded as profiting from and promoting online gambling. So, in apparent contradiction, online gambling- the activity- is allowed, but the promotion and provision of it is not.

[cecil]

Um, I think this is good news?

The article did not seem very clear to me.

What does this mean:

So now, online gambling in the privacy of a home in Washington State is a legitimate defense against being convicted of a felony charge.

[indio]

It means that it is SCARY to think that a law this invasive was passed in the first place. The fact that 36 memebers of the senate voted no to have this atrocity repealed is alarming.

Thank god someone with some common sense like Rep Stow had the decency to introduce the repeal.

[cecil]

Yeah, I don't have the votes but I would bet those who voted no were the party line voters in Eastern Washington...
They don't think before they vote just do what there party does.

Atleast Strow is a R with his own opinion...


I still wish I understood what happened here.

[Minnow]

cecil, When all this was going down, the more I read, the less I understood. Some were of the opinion the original bill was to prevent the Indian casino's from ever setting up poker sites online. Others said the bill was to promote the state sanctioned b&m gambling interests. I leaned towards the latter, since Gregoire, who says she "hates gambling" profited greatly from "big gambling" via campaign contributions.

[clevfan]

Washington State Posts Wrong Bill's Passage- Online Poker Still Illegal

by PokerPages.com
Fri, Apr 27th, 2007 @ 12:00am

Reports that the Washington State legislature passed bill HB 1243 amending the state's anti-online gaming laws are false, the Washington State Governor's office said yesterday, and due to an error where voting results for a different bill were posted by mistake in its place.


"It didn't pass through the legislature," said John Lane, the Executive Policy Advisor for Washington Governor Christine Gregoire.


The Washington State legislature posted positive voting results for HB 1243, so the media began to report that the bill had passed and was on its way to the Governor's office (click here to read related article).


But the results were actually the voting results for HB 1343, a Motor Vehicle Registration bill. According the Washington State Legislative Hotline the error occurred while HB 1343 results were posted.


Bill 1243 was introduced by State Rep. Chris Strow, R-Whidbey Island, to correct excessive Class C felony charges for online poker or online gambling when done in the privacy of a primary residence for recreation and not for organized profit.


Other Class C felonies under Washington State law include but are not limited to acts of child molestation, stalking, drive by shootings, threatening the governor, family abandonment, heroin possession and unauthorized abortion.


Strow has said he considers the charge "an inappropriate penalty for an activity responsible adults should be allowed to do in the privacy of their home."


Persons convicted of a Class C felony face a maximum of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

[cecil]

WTF!

[Minnow]

Nice bluff.

[stevo]

Unreral.

[clevfan]

Place a bet: Is he a nerd or a felon?
By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times staff columnist
Apr 29

Tom Goldman and I are in Aruba when he swoops in for the kill. Or maybe it's Costa Rica. I lose track, it happens so fast.

On a green pixilated table, a blinking icon pushes in all its chips. Bets the farm, so to speak. In this game of pot-limit, Omaha Hi-Lo, it's a bet of about $35. "You dog, you shouldn't have done that," Goldman says cheerfully. With a click, he matches the bet, driving the total on the table to about $100.

Almost instantaneously, the screen flashes and all the money moves into Goldman's account. A second later, the bet-the-farm guy bleeps from the screen, as if vaporized.

Where did he go?

"Who knows," Goldman shrugs. "Is he in a huge mansion somewhere, playing cards for kicks? Or is he a broke guy sitting in a van down by some river?"

We look at each other. My mind reels. We actually are in Goldman's sparse bedroom, in a town house in one of those cul-de-sac developments on the hills north of Issaquah.

And we are committing a felony.

Goldman, 26, is a professional online-poker player. He has a day job — business analyst at a Bellevue health-care company. By night, he does something illegal — he heads to casinos in places such as Cyprus and the Isle of Man to gamble against tens of thousands of people from around the globe.

He's good at it. Last year he netted $45,000. He does it in a dizzying display of patient, mathematical multitasking.

The other night, he simultaneously used two screens to play poker at nine tables in four separate casinos. He considered the probability distributions for nine hands of cards at a time, placed bets and managed nine accounts, all while talking to me and surfing the Web.




He played 250 hands in 90 minutes — 10 times the rate of play when you go to a cardroom in person. He's like the Wal-Mart of gamblers — high volume, low margin, steady success.

"I'm the video-game generation," he said. "I'm good at focusing on bursts of information for a split second, then moving on. It's like a series of brain teasers to me.

"That's the thing about online gambling. We're mostly math nerds who'd otherwise be playing video games."

I dropped in on Goldman's digital-gambling life because the state doesn't see him as a harmless nerd.

A law passed last year says what he's doing is a Class C felony — a crime on the order of possessing child pornography or fleeing police or robbing a grave.

To Goldman, having his name in the paper is an act of civil disobedience. He's practically daring the state to catch him if it can.

"I want to challenge the law," he said. "I'm a regular guy. I work a 9-to-5 job. I go to Mass every weekend. And, yes, I gamble online. This makes me a felon?"

Goldman got straight A's at Interlake High School in Bellevue. In 2003 he graduated with a double major in statistics and math from the University of Washington.

He's been gambling online for three years. He pays taxes on his winnings. He tithes 10 percent to charity and to St. Louise Catholic Church in Bellevue.

He even confessed to a priest there — and got back a surprising response, he says.

"Is it morally OK, ethically OK to take money from weaker players?" Goldman asked the priest. "Because that's what I'm doing — I'm actively looking for tables where I know I can win."

The priest said it's OK as long as Goldman is testing himself against peers who have the same opportunities to improve as he does. But it's immoral to exploit the vulnerable, such as gambling addicts or drunks.

The trouble out on the wild, wild Web is: Who can tell? It's as anonymous as it is borderless. Goldman has met skilled poker players from Ohio to Australia. Yet he's also run into gamblers who aren't people at all, but card-playing software bots, sort of amateur versions of IBM's Deep Blue.

Right now the talk of the casinos is the U.S. government, which continues to try, in vain, to put a digital anti-gambling wall around America. Even as lotteries and other types of homegrown gambling flourish.

Chris Strow, a Republican state legislator from Whidbey Island, said the criminalization of people who are joining a game from their homes is an "amazing intrusion on personal liberty."

Strow introduced a bill this year to roll back the criminal penalties, but the state Gambling Commission opposed it and it went nowhere.

As it is, the digital underground is thriving. The other night there were 141,000 players in the casinos we visited.

At one casino you can roll your mouse over their icons and see where they're from. Places such as Powell River, B.C.; Auburn, Ga.; Bettendorf, Iowa.

And Issaquah. When I left Goldman to walk to my car, it was nearing midnight. It was so quiet I could hear frogs croaking. That telltale blue glow radiated from many of the identical town homes.

What were people doing in there? Where in the world were they going? And what, if anything, should be done about it?

The mind reels.

[Minnow]

Washington State Law Over-Reaction
WASHINGTON STATE LAW IS AN OVER-REACTION

Equating online gambling with possessing child pornography, fleeing police or robbing a grave is a strange perspective.

The outspoken columnist of the Seattle Times, Danny Westneat, is a pragmatic writer we have quoted before, and this week he spent some time with a skilled online poker player to find out why the draconian laws against online gambling in the state of Washington consider this pastime a Class C felony on a par with possessing child pornography, fleeing police or robbing a grave.

The piece was topical in that last week it appeared that the law had been sensibly amended to exclude online poker players pursuing their passion for recreational purposes in the privacy of their homes. That was the proposal submitted by Representative Chris Strow who was having second thoughts about the severity of the punitive measures imposed by his home state. Alas, the announcement was wrong following a snafu in the official posting of the result on a vehicle licensing bill (see earlier Online-Casinos.com/InfoPowa report) and the felony C penalties remain.

The Republican politician characterised the criminalisation of citizens who are joining a game from their homes as an "amazing intrusion on personal liberty."

Westneat spent time with an online poker player who multitasks his way to around $45 000 a year despite the risks entailed. The columnist describes a typical 90 minutes of play in which the 26 year old player, operating from the bedroom of his townhouse, engaged with players all over the world in poker rooms located in places as diverse as Cyprus and the Isle of Man.

Westneat comments: "He's good at it. Last year he netted $45 000. He does it in a dizzying display of patient, mathematical multitasking.....he simultaneously used two screens to play poker at nine tables in four separate casinos. He considered the probability distributions for nine hands of cards at a time, placed bets and managed nine accounts, all while talking to me and surfing the Web.

"He played 250 hands in 90 minutes - 10 times the rate of play when you go to a cardroom in person. He's like the Wal-Mart of gamblers - high volume, low margin, steady success."

"I'm the video-game generation," the player told Westneat. "I'm good at focusing on bursts of information for a split second, then moving on. It's like a series of brain teasers to me. That's the thing about online gambling. We're mostly math nerds who'd otherwise be playing video games."

The player, whose name is disclosed in Westneat's column, sees having his name in the paper is an act of civil disobedience. He's practically daring the state to catch him if it can.

"I want to challenge the law," he said. "I'm a regular guy. I work a 9-to-5 job. I go to Mass every weekend. And, yes, I gamble online. This makes me a felon?"

Westneat points out that online players are diverse and numerous on an Internet that is as anonymous as it is borderless. The player he visited has, in common with thousands of others, virtually met skilled poker players from Ohio to Australia. Yet he's also run into gamblers who aren't people at all, but card-playing software bots.

The US situation is described as a government that "...continues to try, in vain, to put a digital anti-gambling wall around America. Even as lotteries and other types of homegrown gambling flourish."

He goes on to reveal that in the night he spent with the online player there were 141 000 players just in the casinos and poker rooms that were visited.

"When I left [the player] to walk to my car, it was nearing midnight. It was so quiet I could hear frogs croaking. That telltale blue glow radiated from many of the identical town homes," Westneat concludes his column. "What were people doing in there? Where in the world were they going? And what, if anything, should be done about it?

"The mind reels."
Washington State Law Over-Reaction

[Minnow]

So.... felony drug dealing, kiddy porn, threatening the governor, robbing graves and torturing animals. Think of all the fun things I could be doing at equal risk!

[Bitter Bruin]

I live in the one state where threatening your Governor will result in getting the living shit beat out of you - he's a fukkin idiot, but I am pretty confident the Governator could kick my ass.

[StarnetGypsy]

Originally Posted by Minnow

So.... felony drug dealing, kiddy porn, threatening the governor, robbing graves and torturing animals. Think of all the fun things I could be doing at equal risk!

Washington has always been a police state, Minnow. What can I say?

How's the movin goin? Oregon is just down the road btw

[BLKadetsIL]

U know, I am still now actually clear on this whole online gambling law. So basically, is it illigal for me to gamble online, such as hitting the sportsbooks online?

[StarnetGypsy]

Online sportbetting has been illegal since the inactment of the 1961 Wire Wager Act ...

According to the Wire Wager Act, betting on sports is the only form of online wagering that is illegal. The Wire Wager Act reads as follows:

"Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers, or information assisting in the placement of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years or both."

The Wire Wager Act was upheld when the U.S. Supreme Court, during 2001 and 2002, refused to review the conviction of Jay Cohen, who had been running an internet sportsbook based in Antigua. And, even though the Department of Justice has said in recent years that that the Wire Wager Act also declares online casino games, not just sports betting, to be illegal, the Federal Appeals Court has ruled that that interpretation is not correct.

However, in July of 2006, everything changed. On a vote of 317-93, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban financial payments to offshore casinos as part of the The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 H.R. 4411. The legislation also compels banks and credit card companies to cut off payments to the estimated 2,300 gambling sites located outside of U.S. jurisdiction. This legislation bans all forms of internet gambling, including card games and sportsbetting.

Now ask us if we give a rats ass?

[BLKadetsIL]

Do the government enforce this law? Hope the FBI or something doesn't come arresting me lol

[Minnow]

BLK, Do you live in Washington State? The laws differ from state to state, and right now, Washington appears to be the most insane. I have read that their intention is not to prosecute poker players (or online gamblers in general) but if thats the case, why the law? And just the fact that they could if they wanted to.

[BLKadetsIL]

I live in Colorado. Been hitting the sports book for roughly a year so I'm assuming I'm fine.