Sessions Should Leave Online Gaming Regulation To The States

Townhall discusses the history of the Wire Act with Michelle Minton. 

The Wire Act was passed before the internet existed. Its objective was to limit “the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest” by “transmission in interstate or foreign commerce.” No reasonable reading of the Wire Act’s text suggests that online gambling should be prohibited, especially when it is intrastate only. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Michelle Minton has extensively documented, Congress and the Department of Justice at the time understood the Wire Act to be narrowly focused on targeting the mafia’s telephone-run sports gambling racket.

RAWA was designed to assist states in the enforcement of their laws, not to override them. Unfortunately, prosecutors in the 1990s started using the Wire Act for online gambling offenses, and by 2002 the Bush administration’s Department of Justice declared that it prohibited not just sports betting but also “casino-style gambling” online.

Read the full article at Townhall.