Home / Poker News March 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Online Lottery Sales in Illinois
The Poker Grapevine – Online Lottery Sales in Illinois
Posted by: Randy Williams - Tue, 2012-03-27 11:20
On Sunday, the state of Illinois made online gambling history by becoming the first US state ever to sell lottery tickets online. Sale of the tickets began Sunday morning and by the end of the day, around $15k worth of tickets had been sold. In order to put the news into perspective, one has to understand that it was Illinois and New York lottery representatives who inquired the DoJ about the applicability of the 1961 Wire Act to such online activities, promoting the now famous December 22 DoJ reply, which settled the Wire Act issue once and for all, stating that it was only applicable to sports betting. The DoJ ruling opened the way for states like Nevada, California and New Jersey to begin seriously considering
online poker legalization and regulation.
According to the American Gaming Association, there are at least 21 US states which are considering the Illinois-like sale of lottery tickets online. The District of Columbia is apparently also on that list.
In other news: another high profile player joined Party Poker’s Premier League V. The announcement was made on Monday that Scott Seiver had taken the last available Premier League V slot. The event kicks off on April 4 and it wraps up on April 10 in Vienna. The lineup set to belly up to the tables is a pretty impressive one indeed: besides Bertrand Grospellier who had joined the League about a week ago, Tony G, Vanessa Selbst, Tom Dwan, Yevgeniy Tomishenko, Andy Frankenberger, Eugene Katchalov, Sam Trickett, Daniel Cates and Phil Laak will play as well.
Seiver, who is the proud holder of a WSOP title and the beneficiary of more than $4 million in tournament earnings in his career, said that the Premier League V’s structure suited him just fine and that he was ready to mix it up with the best of them. He also said he would make full use of table-talk, which he considers an important part of his game.
