
The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee listened to viewpoints on the Restoration of America’s Wire Act on Wednesday, the second time RAWA has been the subject of a home hearing.
RAWA gets around more, yet remains as unloved, as that certain girl you went to school with.
AKA the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, RAWA was heard in the House of Representatives on during an Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) session titled, ‘A Casino in Every Smartphone: Law Enforcement Implications. wednesday’
(we are unsure should they were making a play in the old Herbert Hoover slogan ‘A Chicken in almost every Pot’ with that session name, but interesting choice, anyway.)
Four witnesses brought their supposed expertise to Washington, DC, to testify on Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s (R-Utah) legislation that would restore the Wire Act to its pre-2011 interpretation. Four years back, the Department of Justice ruled that the pre-Internet 1961 federal law didn’t necessarily prohibit online gambling, effectively opening states to legalize online casinos.
‘We’ve had attorneys that are numerous, numerous governors saying, ‘You can’t accomplish that to the state,” Chaffetz stated in their remarks. ‘ You just don’t unilaterally change the statutory law with an OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion.
‘ That poses a problem for lots of states. States which have legalized gambling, states like myself [sic] that have no gaming, and don’t desire to have any gaming,’ Chaffetz declared.
Defining RAWA
‘ The interpretation of the Wire Act has been a relevant concern before 2011 and it continues to be a question now,’ State Senator Mark Lipparelli (R-Nevada) testified. ‘a situation is had by you now where you have actually old law that hasn’t kept up with innovation.’
Lipparelli was instrumental in bringing poker that is online Nevada, as he formerly served as the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Throughout the RAWA hearing, Lipparelli was routinely contacted to protect legalization, which he did successfully, based on many observers.
Lost throughout the hearing was a understanding that is central of comprises ‘legal online gambling’ versus ‘illegal online gambling’.
FBI Assistant Director for the Criminal Investigative Division Joseph Campbell provided several instances where his unit has infiltrated unlawful syndicates, concealing their identity online to launder cash. However, when asked to provide accounts of any currently legal and regulated gambling operator’s transgressions within the same vein, Campbell said he could not furnish such examples.
Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson swore that his state’s experience with land-based video poker is a large negative, and that ‘gambling addictions proliferated exponentially.’
‘Despite South Carolina’s continued best efforts over the decades to protect our citizens through the threats posed by gambling, the Department of Justice’s revised interpretation of the Wire Act has opened the door to Internet gambling, potentially turning any mobile device in our state as a virtual casino.’
Nebraska attorney Donald Kleine then also expressed issues about states legalizing gambling on computers and smartphones. ‘on the web gambling easily crosses domestic and international boundaries and can often be accessed by anyone with Web access,’ Kleine explained.
Location, Location, Not Merely Location
A provided trepidation among RAWA supporters is that present technology cannot accurately identify the whereabouts of a user trying to enter a casino that is online. ‘ I think it’s naïve at best to think a wall can be put by you on the web,’ Chaffetz stated.
But Chaffetz, whom also serves while the OGR chair, said his concerns are more than simply location.
‘Location is … a core part of it, but inaddition it is because of your actual age, it offers to do with your intoxication (level), it has to do with a host that is whole of,’ Chaffetz detailed.
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) also voiced fears about an adolescent obtaining a your hands on a smartphone with a casino app installed and losing the adult owner’s whole bankroll. Lipparelli responded by declaring that such a concern isn’t particular to online gambling, and so it’s no longer dangerous, or maybe also less dangerous due to regulated iGaming controls, than a youth finding a credit card and going shopping that is crazy the net.
Though a lot of the 43 OGR committee members skipped the RAWA conversation, the ones that did attend seemed apprehensive in voting to possess Congress get involved with deciding the fate of online gambling for all 50 states.
OGR Website Censored
Viewers are able to watch the RAWA conversation in its entirety on the OGR website, or watch three carefully selected excerpts posted below the hours-long session.
Though the conference was lively and well-rounded, the 3 clips on the OGR website appears to highlight the best exchanges of primarily RAWA proponents.
Chaffetz’s whole inquiry, which was allowed to be restricted to 5 minutes, but went for over nine, is available for viewing in its entirety. As are comments from Wilson as he recounts a tale where a young child died in a hot car outside a casino as the mother compulsively gambled inside.
Palmer’s questioning, including his opinion that gambling targets the indegent, can also be watched. Palmer was one of, or maybe truly the only, representative in attendance that came across like in help of RAWA, besides bill sponsor Chaffetz, of course.
Meyer Lansky Heirs Seek Compensation Claim for Cuban Casino
Meyer Lansky, ‘the Mob’s Accountant,’ who fled the Cuban Revolution, leaving his Havana casinos behind him. (Image: museumsyndicate.com)
When Meyer Lansky built the Habana Riviera Hotel and Casino in 1957, Havana was moving.
It had been, at the time, the largest purpose-built hotel on the planet and Ginger Rogers played on the night that is opening.
Lansky complained that while Rogers could ‘wiggle her ass’ she ‘couldn’t sing a note that is goddam’ but the legendary Jewish mobster was pleased enough.
After all, times were good: he had installed himself in the suite that is presidential within the initial 12 months he would make $3 million from his new task.
But revolution ended up being in the air, and in 1959 Lansky was forced to flee the nation, as was his great friend, the dictator and President of Cuba Fulgencio Batista, under whose patronage the United states Mafia had flourished in Cuba.
Many of Havana’s gambling enterprises were damaged within the fighting and looting as Castro’s forces swarmed into town. In 1960 all of Cuba’s hotels had been nationalized and gambling became illegal.
The entranceway is Open
But, history concept aside, now that the united states has restored diplomatic ties with its old foe, there is talk of honoring 50-year-old legal claims relating to the brand new confiscation of property, and Lansky’s heirs believe they’ve a claim in the Riviera.
Gary Rapoport, a commercial propane salesman from Florida and Lansky’s grandson, says that his mother, his uncle and he, as beneficiaries of Lansky’s trust, should be entitled to some type of compensation.
‘The hotel was taken from my grandfather forcefully,’ he told NBC Miami. ‘Cuba owes my family money.’
‘Trust me,’ he continued, ‘I’m not searching to go down to Cuba and take over the business. I believe my loved ones is entitled to something.
‘ We never filed a claim with the national government or hired an attorney earlier because we didn’t think the entranceway for negotiating would ever actually open. Now it is open’
‘ Governments change their mind on a lot of different things. I’m looking he added at it as a businessman.
Did Lansky Die Broke?
Meyer Lansky, dubbed the Mob’s accountant, ended up being a teenage friend of Bugsy Siegel and Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano that would later become the relative mind of the Genovese Crime Family. He began their career, with Siegel, running a violent bootlegging procedure during Prohibition, but eventually developed a gambling empire that stretched across the planet.
Despite a career that is lifelong organized crime, he was never convicted of anything worse than unlawful gambling.
Lansky invested hugely in Cuba, and he was cost by the revolution millions. As he passed away, in 1983 of lung cancer, aged 80, he was ostensibly broke, although the FBI believed he had squirreled away some $300 million into overseas bank accounts.
It’s unclear whether his family members does have a claim on the Riviera. The revolutionaries of 1959 were furious because of the corruption of the Batista government and particularly with all the real way the dictator had sold off land and assets to the American Mafia.
Court Bars DraftKings and FanDuel from Operating in New York
Justice Manuel Mendez, whom sided with New York Attorney General Schneiderman today and granted an injunction against DraftKings and FanDuel. (Image: uptowncollective.com)
DraftKings and FanDuel have experienced a blow that is huge their legal battle to continue to operate in hawaii of New York.
A judge granted the injunction sought by the New York Attorney General’s Office that prevents the operators from taking bets from New Yorkers for the duration of the case today.
FanDuel decided to suspend its operations in the state before the outcome of today’s hearing, while DraftKings had defiantly continued to take bets, but must now stop to do so.
While that is not the end of the lawsuit between your day-to-day fantasy sports operators and New York, the indications are ominous for the websites; the court would be unlikely to grant the injunction without strongly favoring the position of the attorney general.
Legal Skirmishes
The litigation escalated in mid-November when AG Eric Schneiderman wrote cease and desist letters towards the two sites informing them that their operations constituted ‘illegal gambling’ under New York legislation.
Both sites launched legal action against the AG’s office in order to challenge the opinion and protect their business in the state while New York’s DFS fans protested on the streets.
They also launched an unsuccessful request for a short-term restraining purchase to stop Schneiderman from issuing the injunction that was issued today.
Lawyers for web sites spent a long time at a New York Assembly hearing on DFS on Tuesday arguing that the training was a game of skill and that transparency and player protection were paramount to the industry.
‘ We should work with one to ensure that fantasy competitions are legal, safe for customers, and continue to give you the great entertainment value that has driven our growth over the past few years,’ FanDuel’s counsel for policy and government affairs Cory Fox told put together lawmakers in Albany.
‘ We believe the best path forward for the dream sports industry is always to create regulatory solutions that will allow the an incredible number of users who love fantasy sports to play.’
Something of Value
But today in court the question that is simple Justice Manuel Mendez was necessary to answer was whether setting a DFS line-up is really a skill or a bet. It is, he responded, the latter.
The websites’ lawyers had argued that since they were not taking ‘wagers’ but entry costs DFS could not be seen as gambling under state legislation, an argument that Mendez dismissed.
‘New York State penal legislation does perhaps not refer to ‘wagering’ or ‘betting,’ instead it states that a person, ‘risks something of value,” he said. ‘The payment of an ‘entry fee’ as high as $10,600 using one or more competitions daily could be deemed risking certainly ‘something of value.”