The US District Court District of Rhode Island has ruled in favor of IGT in its lawsuit against the US DOJ, confirming that the Wire Act only makes interstate online sports betting illegal. [Image: Shutterstock.com] Online gambling industry can exhale
The online gambling industry appears to be back on the good side of the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 (Wire Act). On Thursday, the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled in favor of International Game Technology (IGT) in the gaming company’s lawsuit against US Attorney General Merrick Garland and the US Department of Justice.
IGT filed its suit against the DOJ in November 2021, claiming that an opinion on the Wire Act issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 2018 resulted in the company having to commit resources (read: money) on potential lawsuits, should the government pursue legal action. Effectively a sword of Damocles hung over IGT, its business potentially at risk because of the 2018 Wire Act interpretation.
In February 2022, the DOJ filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that IGT “didn’t provide sufficient evidence to confirm its claim that there’s a threat of prosecution” and that the Wire Act does not apply to land-based lottery and casino services, which comprise much of IGT’s business.
IGT wanted a definitive ruling and it got that this week. Politics, money influenced 2018 opinion
The Wire Act was originally written to prevent interstate or foreign sports betting over wire communications as a way to curtail organized crime. The controversy surrounding the Wire Act began around the time of the online poker boom, in the decade of the aughts. Some lawmakers – generally ones who were anti-online gambling – claimed that the Wire Act applied to all online gambling, not just sports betting (by this point, the internet was considered “wire communications,” even though it clearly didn’t exist in 1961).
In 2011, the OLC, then under the Obama Administration, issued an opinion in response to two state lotteries that wanted to sell lottery tickets online. The opinion said that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting, which […]
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