It’s our last show of the year, so we update some of the biggest gambling news stories from 2019. Topics include Pennsylvania online poker, the Department of Justice Wire Act opinion, and the expansion of sports betting!
Hello friends, and welcome to This Week in Gambling! Our last show of the year before I take some much-deserved time off! And hey, what better way to say goodbye to 2019 than to look back at this year’s biggest gambling news stories?
After a long wait, Pennsylvania online poker finally arrived. Now just over a month after the launch, PokerStars has blown away all the expectations! In fact, Pennsylvania has done better than any other regulated poker market in the United States! The site is averaging over 400 cash games running at the same time, and tournament participation has been so strong that Poker Stars had to up their guarantees by 20 percent!
However, it wasn’t all good news this past year. You may remember that the US Department of Justice played Scrooge to online gambling when they suddenly change their opinion on the Federal Wire Act earlier this year… a case they eventually lost but are planning to appeal. As we reported on our show from November 12th, the DOJ’s paperwork to file that appeal was due last month. However, they asked the judge for an extension and he said yeah sure… go ‘head go ‘head go ‘head… The new deadline for the appeal in the DOJ online gambling case is December 20th, so I’ll have to update you on this case when I come back in January.
Threats from the DOJ did not dampen the Christmas spirit of the states when it came to sports betting. Thirteen of them have now regulated the activity, and another six have passed legislation and should go live sometime in 2020. But with mo’ sports betting comes mo’ problems. As we reported in the gambling news last week the very first NFL player has been suspended for betting on the games, prompting a fresh warning from the league about NFL sports betting rules to be issued just a few days ago.
To be fair, the player in question never compromised the integrity of the games. He never played in any of the games. And he never used any inside information when placing his bets on the games. Still, he made the NFL’s naughty list. After all, rules are rules.
Of course some people may use this incident to condemn sports betting expansion and America, but if they do you just remind them that these bets were placed in a Las Vegas casino where sports betting had been regulated for years… not in one of these new jurisdictions with expanded sports betting. So this incident would have happened even without sports betting reform. So they can go stuff that argument straight in their stocking!
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