Home / Poker News February 2014 / Legality of Home Poker Games to be Re-assessed by US Supreme Court
Legality of Home Poker Games to be Re-assessed by US Supreme Court
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2014-02-21 08:06
The US Supreme Court is going to undertake an unprecedented move on Friday, when it’ll review the legal status of home poker games. If the Supreme Court takes the case – and an announcement in this respect is expected for Monday – it’ll mark the first time ever that the Supreme Court will hear a poker-related case. The issue to be considered is whether or not the IGBA (Internet Gambling Business Act) applies to poker as well as to other – more clearly chance-based – games. The stakes are indeed high, as there is legal precedent to both the IGBA being tossed out in connection with home poker games where rake was taken, and it being upheld in the same case at a later time.
The case we’re talking about is obviously the Lawrence DiCristina one, which went through all the ups and downs of the legal system, and came out no wiser at the other end.
Lawrence DiCristina is a businessman is Staten Island who had apparently supplemented the income generated by his bicycle business by running poker games out of the warehouse of his operation. His arrest happened in 2011, and in July 2012, he was convicted in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, by Judge Jack Weinstein.
A month later, the judge overturned the decision, claiming that the IGBA did not apply to the case.
In August 2013 though, the conviction was reinstated, by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, on account of the fact that as long as poker was considered illegal gambling under state law, it did not even matter whether the IGBA applied to it or not to begin with.
According to the PPAs Patrick Fleming, the Supreme Court appeal in this case is a huge long-shot indeed, one not likely to gain additional consideration.
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