Home / Poker News August 2008 / Poker games raided in Pennsylvania. State attorney general seeks funds seizure.
Poker games raided in Pennsylvania. State attorney general seeks funds seizure.
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2008-08-02 09:21
Live poker games have come under scrutiny in Pennsylvania recently. Everyone interested in poker knows how home-style games have experienced a surge in popularity as a direct result of the UIGEA. These games give people the impression that they are not engaging in anything illegal, although many times it has been proven that what authorities consider illegal is an altogether different matter. Since the UIGEA pretty much fails to clearly define what constitutes an offense in regards to online gambling, and laws concerning live poker games are also either non-existent or very ambiguous, people who think they are organizing a completely legal game are often in for a nasty surprise.
Such was the case of PA attorney Larry Burns who has been organizing live poker games in Westmoreland County, also for the benefit of the local fire department. Not only have these games been raided (and $9,000 seized during the raid) the funds have been tracked to the Westmoreland County Fire Department and now the state attorney general office has filed a petition to have a further $31,000 seized from the firefighters. The money sought to be seized was paid by Burns to the fire dept. as rent for the fire station where the games were organized. To top the whole thing off, Burns is also facing misdemeanor charges as he has been identified as the principal “perpetrator”.
Burns has tried to attack the charges, first by iterating the fact that poker is in fact more of a game of skill than one of chance, and now by arguing that the way his poker games were organized was not in fact illegal.
David Millstein, Burns’ attorney, said that court precedents in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have already defined what qualifies as unlawful gambling, and playing poker for money or for any sort of prizes certainly doesn’t qualify as that. Regardless of all the arguments and reasoning though, the seizure process will probably move forward, and the above named fire dept. will soon find itself $31k short.
