Home / Poker News October 2010 / PokerStars out of Washington State?
PokerStars out of Washington State?
Posted by: Jo Martin - Sun, 2010-10-03 08:39
Not only will online poker not be legalized in the US this year, the pressure on the game appears to be on the increase. Apparently PokerStars, one of the sites that have never backed down after the UIGEA, has been forced to retreat from the State of Washington, by a decision of the Supreme Court which prohibits all forms of online gambling within the state.
So far,
PokerStars’ main anti-UIGEA argument was that since no federal or state law prohibited the brand of gambling pushed by the site, they were operating within US law. The verdict of the Washington State Supreme Court made PokerStars’ brand of online gambling a class C felony, which is punishable by up to a year’s jail time.
The Washington State law has also made it a class C felony to advertise online gambling in any shape or form.
The move marks the first time that PokerStars, one of the apparently untouchable operations, has backed down in a dispute regarding the illegal nature of online poker in the US.
In an email sent out to their players, PokerStars explained that although the above mentioned law had been passed way back in 2006, the site had been operating in Washington based on the assumption and understanding that the state could not constitutionally regulate online poker thus discriminating in favor of the local operations. The Supreme Court’s ruling has obviously nixed all that though, and in light of the new situation, PokerStars – always committed to respecting the law of each jurisdiction it covers, and always the beneficiary of the most up to date legal advice – has decided to block all
online poker players based in the State of Washington.
The only question remaining now is whether
Full Tilt Poker, will follow suit as well, officially turning the state of Washington into an online poker free zone.
