Should California Legalize Online Gambling?

By Troy Vernon Sutton

It is currently illegal, under the federal Wire Act and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), to run an online casino in the U.S. This means none of the sites are regulated by the U.S. gaming commission and it's not clear exactly who is making sure that online gambling sites don't cheat.

Gambling, even where the odds are with the house, has its share of swindlers. People who profit through greed, corruption and dishonesty are an unfortunate and unattractive fact of life in our society, and gambling has always been a hotbed for such unsavory characters.

Although the chat rooms are full of comments on both sides of the argument about the trustworthiness of online gaming, it's only logical to believe that online poker, an industry with little visible accountability, is one of the ripest targets on the planet for corruption and greed on an industrial scale.

I have heard numerous anecdotes from folks claiming to have won big through online sites. However, in my opinion, casinos, whether in person or online, are all about separating folks from their hard earned money. Let's face it, you are there to get other people's money, and they, in turn, are after your money, the house wants their cut of all of it, and you are open to a variety of other scams:

• collusion - where a number of players at a table are working together to separate you from your money - online poker makes this easier as the colluding players can communicate freely with each other with virtually no risk of detection.


• cheating - where the dealer is using sleight of hand to control which cards are dealt to whom - with an online version this is ever harder to detect. If an online poker game can be programed to play fairly, it can also easily be programed to cheat. You can watch a dealers hands and detect a double lift or a bottom deal - but you can't open up the source code to see if the random shuffle is truly random.


• theft - where someone at the table simply takes money from your stack of chips at an opportune moment when your attention is diverted. Once you have passed your credit card info to an online poker site headquartered in some 3rd world country that you haven't even heard of before, how can you be sure that they will keep your financial data secured?

Playing online poker is a risky business, and a murky legal matter in California. Technically, it is illegal! However, it does not appear that the justice department is making much effort to enforce the laws. Some surveys suggest that millions of Americans are using online gambling sites without any significant reprisal from law enforcement officials.

In 2010, for a moment it looked like online poker would be legalized in California under SB 1485, the California Online Poker Law Enforcement Compliance and Consumer Protection Act. However, SB 1485 was defeated quickly.

Two more online gaming bills were before the state Legislature in 2011, but neither passed. A new effort to license online gaming is expected this year.

In early 2012, U.S. Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a Merced Democrat, was in Sacramento to discuss Internet poker laws. It is reported that Cardoza met with members of the Senate Governmental Organization Committee, which holds sway over whether legalized online gambling will come to California, and who will profit.

If you have questions about online gambline, music law, contracts, or any other general legal questions, please contact the Law Offices of Troy Sutton.