Washington State Online Poker Ban Legality Challenged

A Renton, Washington lawyer celebrated the start of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker last Friday by filing a lawsuit challenging the Washington state ban on online poker, also called Internet poker in the media, according to reports in the Seattle Intelligencer newspaper.

Lawyer Lee Rousso (49) filed his complaint claiming that the 2006 ban on Internet poker is a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution' commerce clause, which prohibits individual states from enacting laws that discriminate against interstate businesses.

No one has yet been prosecuted under the Washington law.

Rousso, who is the Washington state representative for the Poker Players Alliance, and has experience in both live poker as well as online poker tournaments, said his "first legal challenge to the law also should be the last." The lawyer also told the Seattle Intelligencer that he believed his chances of winning his case were "darn good."

The state ban, which was passed in 2006 on Bill SB 6613, prohibits Internet-based card games such as Texas Hold'Em that poker players in Washington (Rousso among them) have used to qualify for large prize pool tournaments played both live and online.

Rousso noted, for example, that Washington residents who won seats for the Main Event of the World Series of Poker likely did so through qualifying on online tournaments, even though it now is a Class C felony to do so.

This has the same penalty as possessing child pornography, stalking, drive by shootings, threatening the governor, family abandonment, heroin possession and unauthorized abortions. Persons convicted of a Class C felony face a maximum of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.

Washington's Internet Gambling law also bans online sports gambling. Lawmakers claimed the ban was passed to make the state compliant with the Federal Wire Act. Originally approved in 1961, the act specifically called out only sports betting and was a federal effort to limit betting on sports over the telephone at a time the government was targeting mafia-run sports betting rings.

Rousso says the ban doesn't put the state in compliance with the Federal Wire Act as it claims to do. He claims that instead, it protects Washington's own in-state gambling industry, which includes live card rooms and casinos that contribute to state revenues.

The complaint details seven points illustrating why the Washington State law is unconstitutional. It also calls out that the author of the original Internet Gambling bill, State Sen. Margarita Prentice, received contributions from the Washington casinos, alleging that these companies "were the intended and/or actual beneficiaries of SB 6613."

Rousso is seeking a declaratory judgment against the bill, which would render it void and unenforceable.

Susan Arland, spokeswoman for the Washington Gambling Commission, said commission lawyers have not seen the lawsuit and would comment only after they had read it. "We don't have anything to say just yet," she said.

Rousso's effort to challenge the state Internet Gambling ban for online poker follows an earlier effort this year by Washington State Rep. Chris Strow, R-Whidbey Island to exclude internet gambling played from a person's home from being a felony.

He introduced House Bill 1243 on Jan 15, 2007 which has not gone farther than its first reading in the House, according to Washington State Legislature records (click here to see bill status).

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