New Washington State Law Makes Online Poker Playing a Felony

[mandy]

A new Washington State law goes into effect on 7 June which will make online poker playing and gambling a Class C Felony punishable by up to 5 years in jail.  The US Congress is also mulling over bills that would stiffen the penalties for online poker playing.

Beginning next month, Washington residents who play poker or make most other types of wagers on the Internet will be committing a Class C felony, equivalent under the law to possessing child pornography, threatening the governor or torturing an animal.

Although the head of the state Gambling Commission says it is unlikely that individual online gamblers will be targeted for arrest, the new law carries stiff penalties: as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The new law, which takes effect June 7, passed the Legislature this year without much public attention. But word has begun to spread among gamblers online and in old-fashioned "brick-and-mortar" card rooms, and the players aren't pleased...

full article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/2718...ource=mypi

The US Congress is also considering similar bills:

Online poker players will have to fold their hands if a Virginia congressman gets his way.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up a bill introduced by Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte ® that would ban much online gambling, including bets on sporting events and games of chance -- namely poker, which has enjoyed a boom in recent years...

The bill would update the Federal Wire Wager Act, which prohibits gambling over telephone lines but may not apply to Internet gambling because not all Web traffic travels over phone lines. It also would force banks to block transactions related to online gambling and would empower law enforcement agencies to force Internet service providers to remove or disable links to gambling sites...

full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...02432.html

[mandy]

Apparently it is now illegal to link to gambling web sites in Washington State and it is illegal to hold online discussions of gambling.  So much for free speech.  :

The first casualty in the state's war on Internet gambling is a local Web site where nobody was actually doing any gambling.

What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. He fancied himself a guide to an uncharted frontier, even compiling a list of "rogue casinos" that had bilked gamblers.

All that, says the state — the ads, the linking, even the discussing — violates a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit "gambling information."...

full article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo...nny15.html

[MEnTALgoddess]

All that, says the state — the ads, the linking, even the discussing — violates a new state law

Did China assume control of the government while I was sleeping last night or what?

[iron_chick]

So what about discussing the law that makes discussing gambling illegal?  Are we all felons now in the state of Washington?