Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Poker Players Alliance has updated their response to the seizure of some $30 million by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York with some interesting new items. For instance, they say that the seizure was done on the basis of the Wire Act:
We have been advised that the action taken by the Department of Justice was NOT an enforcement action based on the UIGEA. Since the regulations have not yet taken effect, the DOJ could not use them as a basis for action. It is important to note that the UIGEA regulations do not try to restrict payouts only deposits to "unlawful Internet gambling" sites.
As I noted shortly after the passage of the UIGEA, that bill only required banks and credit card companies to prevent deposits to sites that had illegal gambling, but online poker is not illegal under the Wire Act. And that appears to be the basis for this particular seizure:
The PPA is not aware of any Federal law that restricts your right to play poker online. For many years, the DOJ has attempted a very broad interpretation of the Wire Act (18 USC §1084), a bill first passed in 1948 and revised in 1961. The Wire Act was passed in order to control the transmission of sports bets and sports betting information. The Wire Act does not affect or control online gaming of any type, including poker. This was affirmed in the US Fifth Circuit Court's landmark 2002 ruling affirming that the Wire Act pertains only to sports betting. [see re In MasterCard]
The full ruling in In Re Mastercard can be found here. It made quite clear that the Wire Act only makes online sports betting illegal. I'm very curious to see what legal authority was the basis for the seizure. If it is indeed the Wire Act, that will never stand up in court.
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If poker isn't a sport, then how come it's all over ESPN?
[/teasing]
Posted by: Abby Normal | June 23, 2009 9:29 AM
The serious answer to that, methinks (I am not a laywer, but I play one on the Internet), is that betting on a sport is different from betting in a sport. It's probably still illegal for me to place a bet on Ed to win a poker game.
Posted by: Michael Suttkus, II | June 23, 2009 1:59 PM
Hey Ed, I thought they'd already discovered weeks ago, that it was based on money laundering laws and the Illegal Gambling Business Act.
I could be wrong.
Posted by: XO | June 23, 2009 2:53 PM
If the feds are relying on the Wire Act, they are nuts. As Ed correctly states, the DOJ's contention that the Wire Act prohibits online poker is quite far-fetched and will never hold up in court.
Relying on the UIGEA seems wrong as well. While hosting a raked poker game is illegal in New York (see section 225 of the Penal Law), and thus online poker in that state qualifies as unlawful internet gambling for purposes of the UIGEA, compliance is not mandatory until December 2009.
Posted by: maurile | June 23, 2009 3:10 PM
The full ruling in In Re Mastercard can be found here. It made quite clear that the Wire Act only makes online sports betting illegal. I'm very curious to see what legal authority was the basis for the seizure. If it is indeed the Wire Act, that will never stand up in court.
The DOJ maintains that since they weren't a party in the Mastercard ruling, they are not bound by it.Posted by: Johnny Moss | June 23, 2009 11:49 PM
The actual warrant of seizure is based upon 18 U.S.C. 1955 the "Prohibition of illegal gambling business", not the wire act.
Posted by: sanford millar | June 24, 2009 1:26 PM
Johnny Moss: The DOJ is not bound by the district court's decision, but within the Fifth Circuit, they are bound by the circuit court's opinion upholding that decision.
sanford millar: That makes a lot more sense. (Also, I think I remember the PPA stating that the seizure was effected without a warrant. So if your information is correct, the PPA is wrong on both counts.)
Posted by: maurile | June 24, 2009 3:02 PM
Sport's gambling is ten thousand light years closer to being fully legal than online poker has been or ever was.
Or maybe the PPA is too ignorant to recognize that fantasy SPORTS and online horse racing are already explicitly legal.
The poker player's and their various coalitions throwing all other online gamblers under the bus is the single most idiotic thing that has taken place on the internet.
Posted by: poker is all luck and no skill | June 28, 2009 1:07 AM
Further,
game of skill/game of chance how juvenile?
how about the servers are located in foreign country's way out of state and federal jurisdiction.
gaming is a state rights issues involving servers way past state lines.
no lets not go with the straight line simplest letter of the law most easily recognizable legal precedent,
instead lets argue that it is not a skill and further than the wire act does not apply.
how many millions have the PPA and the like sucked out of the equation? and now for the first time ever online player's funds are actually confiscated, not house money, not neteller money, not sporting news ad revenue,
but actual player's funds.
awesome work. Keep up the good job.
Posted by: if the forced bet is high enough the only thing seperating poker and lotto are cards | June 28, 2009 1:14 AM