One of the most frequent excuses of legislators in the US for the prohibition of online gambling is that it cannot be controlled and regulated. The court case of Poker Players Alliance against the state of Washington proved these claims to be groundless. The Washington State Branch director of Poker Players Alliance Lee Rousso with the support of the famous attorney and advocate Thomas C. Goldstein has put the prohibition of online gambling in the state of Washington under question in Supreme Court of the state.
The case had first been heard in the trial court, then after going through the court of appeals it finally was tried in Washington Supreme Court by Justice Gerry Alexander and Justice Jim Johnson. Assistant Attorney General Jerry Ackerman spoke for the state of Washington, while Lee Rousso and Thomas Goldstein tried to convince the judges in the unlawfulness of current state laws that consider online gambling a felony. The representatives of Poker Players Alliance pointed out to the fact that a state can under no circumstances discriminate against an industry. It is clearly written in the Commerce Act. But nowadays the laws of Washington clearly give a huge advantage to land-based casinos, while depriving internet casinos from even a possibility to compete with their offline counterparts. The state generates a lot of income through a number of land gambling sites operated under the tribal laws. This makes online gambling inconvenient for the officials.
A person playing poker at a tribal casino is considered a law-abiding citizen, but should the same person try to play the same game online, he or she automatically becomes a felon. The claim of Jerry Ackerman that online casinos are impossible to control was not accepted by the judges as the Assistant Attorney General could not prove it. Thomas Goldstein brought up a number of facts obliterating the claim, including multiple examples of foreign countries where online casinos had long ago become legal, generating a lot of tax revenues for the governments that are wise enough to control internet casino and other online gambling activities, successfully preventing underage citizens from playing and keeping problem gambling in check by a number of simple laws and regulations.
The other issue that arose during the trial concerned online horse betting, which is quite legal in Washington. It turned out that the state is using any opportunity to promote the businesses that already generate a lot of income for the officials. The state is unwilling to create a competitive gambling market either because of corruption of its official legislators or plain inability to see the advantages of regulated internet gambling for the state as well as for its citizens. As Justice Jerry Alexander concluded, the prohibition is just a generational thing and in time the obsolete law is sure to pass into oblivion.