
The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee listened to opinions on the Restoration of America’s Wire Act on Wednesday, the second time RAWA has been the niche of the House hearing.
RAWA gets around more, yet remains as unloved, as that certain girl you went to school with.
AKA the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, RAWA was heard in the House of Representatives on Wednesday during an Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) session titled, ‘A Casino in most Smartphone: Law Enforcement Implications.’
(We’re unsure should they were making a play on the old Herbert Hoover slogan ‘A Chicken in almost every Pot’ with that session title, but choice that is interesting anyway.)
Four witnesses brought their expertise that is supposed to, DC, to testify on Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s (R-Utah) legislation that would restore the Wire Act to its pre-2011 interpretation. Four years ago, the Department of Justice ruled that the pre-Internet 1961 law that is federaln’t necessarily prohibit online gambling, effectively opening states to legalize online casinos.
‘We’ve had attorneys that are numerous, numerous governors saying, ‘You can’t accomplish that to the state,” Chaffetz stated in their remarks. ‘ You simply don’t unilaterally replace the law by having an OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion.
‘ That poses a nagging problem for lots of states. States that have legalized gambling, states like myself [sic] that have no video gaming, plus don’t desire to have any video gaming,’ Chaffetz declared.
Determining RAWA
‘ The interpretation of the Wire Act has been a relevant concern before 2011 also it stays a question now,’ State Senator Mark Lipparelli (R-Nevada) testified. ‘You have situation now where you have actually old law who hasn’t kept up with innovation.’
Lipparelli ended up being instrumental in bringing poker that is online Nevada, as he formerly served as the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Throughout the RAWA hearing, Lipparelli was routinely asked to protect legalization, which he did successfully, based on numerous observers.
Lost throughout the hearing had been a understanding that is central of comprises ‘legal online gambling’ versus ‘illegal on the web gambling’.
FBI Assistant Director for the Criminal Investigative Division Joseph Campbell provided several instances where his unit has infiltrated unlawful syndicates, concealing their identity online to launder cash. However, when asked to provide accounts of any currently legal and gambling that is regulated’s transgressions within the same vein, Campbell said he could maybe not furnish such examples.
Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson swore that his state’s experience with land-based video poker is an enormous negative, and that ‘gambling addictions proliferated exponentially.’
‘Despite South Carolina’s continued best efforts over the decades to protect our citizens through the threats posed by gambling, the Department of Justice’s revised interpretation of this Wire Act has opened the entranceway to online gambling, potentially turning any mobile device in our state as a virtual casino.’
Nebraska attorney Donald Kleine then also expressed issues about states gambling that is legalizing computers and smartphones. ‘on the web gambling easily crosses domestic and worldwide borders and can often be accessed by anyone with online access,’ Kleine explained.
Location, Location, Not Only Location
A shared trepidation among RAWA supporters is that current technology cannot accurately determine the whereabouts of a individual trying to enter a casino that is online. ‘ I think it’s naïve at best to think a wall can be put by you on the web,’ Chaffetz claimed.
But Chaffetz, whom also serves as the OGR seat, said his concerns are far more than just location.
‘Location is … a core part of it, but inaddition it is because of your actual age, this has to do with your intoxication (level), it has to do with a host that is whole of,’ Chaffetz detailed.
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) also voiced fears about an adolescent obtaining a hold of a smartphone with a casino app losing and installed the adult owner’s whole bankroll. Lipparelli responded by declaring that such a concern is not particular to online gambling, and so it’s forget about dangerous, or simply even less dangerous due to regulated iGaming controls, than a youth finding a charge card and going crazy shopping on the web.
Those that did attend seemed apprehensive in voting to have Congress get involved with deciding the fate of online gambling for all 50 states though the majority of the 43 OGR committee members skipped the RAWA discussion.
OGR Website Censored
Viewers can afford to watch the RAWA discussion in its entirety on the OGR website, or watch three carefully chosen excerpts posted underneath the hours-long session.
Though the conference was lively and well-rounded, the 3 clips on the OGR website seems to highlight the best exchanges of primarily RAWA proponents.
Chaffetz’s whole inquiry, which was allowed to be limited to five minutes, but went for over nine, is available for viewing in its entirety. As are comments from Wilson as he recounts an account where a child that is young in a hot car outside a casino as the mom compulsively gambled inside.
Palmer’s questioning, including his opinion that gambling objectives the indegent, can additionally be watched. Palmer was one of, or maybe truly the only, representative in attendance that came across as in help of RAWA, besides bill sponsor Chaffetz, of course.
Meyer Lansky Heirs Seek Compensation Claim for Cuban Casino
Meyer Lansky, ‘the Mob’s Accountant,’ who fled the Cuban Revolution, leaving his Havana casinos behind him. (Image: museumsyndicate.com)
When Meyer Lansky built the Habana Riviera Hotel and Casino in 1957, Havana was moving.
It was, at that time, the largest purpose-built hotel on earth and Ginger Rogers played on the opening night.
Lansky complained that while Rogers could ‘wiggle her ass’ she ‘couldn’t sing a goddam note,’ but the popular Jewish mobster was pleased sufficient.
After all, times were good: he had installed himself in the suite that is presidential within the very first year he would make $3 million from their brand new task.
But revolution ended up being in the air, and in 1959 Lansky was forced to flee the country, as was his great friend, the dictator and President of Cuba Fulgencio Batista, under whose patronage the United states Mafia had flourished in Cuba.
A lot of Havana’s casinos were damaged within the looting and fighting as Castro’s forces swarmed into town. In 1960 all of Cuba’s hotels were nationalized and gambling became unlawful.
The Door is Open
But, history class aside, now that the united states has restored diplomatic ties with its old foe, there is talk of honoring 50-year-old legal claims relating to the revolutionary confiscation of property, and Lansky’s heirs believe they will have a claim on the Riviera.
Gary Rapoport, a propane that is industrial from Florida and Lansky’s grandson, says that their mother, his uncle and he, as beneficiaries of Lansky’s trust, should be eligible for some sort of compensation.
‘The resort was taken from my grandfather forcefully,’ he told NBC Miami. ‘Cuba owes my children money.’
‘Trust me,’ he proceeded, ‘I’m perhaps not searching to move down to Cuba and take over the business. I believe my family is entitled to something.
‘ We never filed a claim with the federal government or hired an attorney earlier because we don’t think the doorway for negotiating would ever actually available. Now it really is open’
‘ Governments change their mind on a lot of various things. I’m looking at it as a businessman,’ he added.
Did Lansky Die Broke?
Meyer Lansky, dubbed the Mob’s accountant, ended up being a teenage friend of Bugsy Siegel and Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano that would later become the mind of the Genovese Crime Family. He began their career, with Siegel, running a violent bootlegging procedure during Prohibition, but eventually developed a gambling empire that stretched across the planet.
Despite a career that is lifelong orderly crime, he was never convicted of anything worse than unlawful gambling.
Lansky invested hugely in Cuba, and he was cost by the revolution millions. He was ostensibly broke, although the FBI believed he had squirreled away some $300 million into offshore bank accounts when he died, in 1983 of lung cancer, aged 80.
It’s unclear whether his household does have a claim regarding the Riviera. The revolutionaries of 1959 were furious because of the corruption of the Batista government and particularly with all the way the dictator had sold off land and assets to the United states Mafia.
Court Bars DraftKings and FanDuel from Operating in New York
Justice Manuel Mendez, whom sided with New York Attorney General Schneiderman today and granted an injunction against DraftKings and FanDuel. (Image: uptowncollective.com)
DraftKings and FanDuel have actually suffered a blow that is huge their appropriate battle to continue to operate in their state of the latest York.
A judge today granted the injunction tried by the New York Attorney General’s Office that prevents the operators from taking bets from New Yorkers for the duration associated with the case.
FanDuel consented to suspend its operations in the state before the outcome of today’s hearing, while DraftKings had defiantly continued to take bets, but must now cease to do this.
While this might be perhaps not the end of the lawsuit between the daily fantasy sports operators and New York, the signs are ominous for the web sites; the court would be unlikely to grant the injunction without strongly favoring the place of the attorney general.
Legal Skirmishes
The litigation escalated in mid-November when AG Eric Schneiderman wrote cease and desist letters to your two sites informing them that their operations constituted ‘illegal gambling’ under New York law.
While New York’s DFS fans protested regarding the streets, both sites launched appropriate action from the AG’s office in order to challenge the opinion and protect their company into the state.
They also launched an unsuccessful request for a short-term restraining purchase to prevent Schneiderman from issuing the injunction that was given today.
Lawyers for web sites spent several hours at a New York Assembly hearing on DFS on Tuesday arguing that the practice had been a game of skill and that transparency and player protection were vital towards the industry.
‘ We should work with one to ensure that fantasy contests are legal, safe for consumers, and continue to offer the great entertainment value that has driven our growth over the previous several years,’ FanDuel’s counsel for policy and government affairs Cory Fox told assembled lawmakers in Albany.
‘ We believe that the path that is best forward for the fantasy sports industry is to craft regulatory solutions that will allow the millions of users who love dream sports to play.’
Something of Value
But today in court the simple question that Justice Manuel Mendez was required to answer had been whether setting a DFS line-up is just a skill or a wager. It is, he replied, the latter.
The sites’ lawyers had argued that simply because they had been not taking ‘wagers’ but entry charges DFS could not be viewed as gambling under state law, a quarrel that Mendez dismissed.
‘New York State penal legislation does maybe not refer to ‘wagering’ or ‘betting,’ rather it states that a person, ‘risks one thing of value,” he said. ‘The payment of an ‘entry fee’ as high as $10,600 on a single or more contests daily could truly be deemed risking ‘something of value.”