Thursday, June 15, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Danny Westneat
This column may be illegal
By Danny Westneat <mailto:dwestneat@seattletimes.com>
Seattle Times staff columnist
The first casualty in the state's war on Internet gambling is a local Web site
where nobody was actually doing any gambling.
What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He
reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. He fancied
himself a guide to an uncharted frontier, even compiling a list of "rogue
casinos" that had bilked gamblers.
All that, says the state - the ads, the linking, even the discussing - violates
a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit
"gambling information."
"It's what the feds would call 'aiding and abetting,' " says the director of the
state's gambling commission, Rick Day. "Telling people how to gamble online,
where to do it, giving a link to it - that's all obviously enabling something
that is illegal."
Uh-oh. This is starting to get a little creepy.
I hadn't been all worked up about the state's crusade against Internet gambling,
including the new law that makes most online betting a felony.
Yes, it's insincere. This is the same state that's happy to enable your online
wagering if you're playing the ponies.
But mostly it seemed the law was unenforceable. And passé. A society steeped in
televised Texas Hold'em and Indian casinos is suddenly supposed to recoil at the
idea of placing bets with a mouse? I figured the law was a bluff.
Then I heard about Todd Boutte. He's a former Wal-Mart worker in Bellingham who
started a casino review called IntegrityCasinoGuide.com
<http://integritycasinoguide.com/> . He worried about the new law but figured
he'd be OK because his site has no actual gambling.
Not so, said the state. Writing about online gambling in a way that seems
promotional can earn a cease-and-desist order, and potentially, a criminal
charge. Boutte learned this when a Bellingham Herald article featured state
officials saying his site was illegal. He later shut it down and is trying to
sell it out of state.
"1984 has finally arrived," Boutte says. "I can't believe this is happening in a
liberal place like Washington."
More may be on the way. The state plans to hire an investigator to enforce the
new law.
Gambling officials told me The Seattle Times may be afoul of the law because we
print a poker how-to column, "Card Shark," by gambler Daniel Negreanu. He
sometimes tells readers to hone their skills at online casinos. And at the end
of each column is a Web address, fullcontactpoker.com
<http://fullcontactpoker.com/> , where readers can comment.
If you type in that address, you whiz off to Negreanu's digital casino based in
the Antilles.
It's a tangled Web, isn't it? The state says we'd best do our part to untangle
it.
"My suggestion to you is to remove from your paper any advice about online
gambling and any links to illegal sites," Day said.
So even this column could be illegal?
The state's gone from trying to control gambling, which is legit, to trying to
control people speaking about gambling.
It's hard to take coming from a state that bombards us with pitches for the
biggest sucker's bet of all. You know, the one they call the lottery.
Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086
or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
Danny Westneat
This column may be illegal
By Danny Westneat <mailto:dwestneat@seattletimes.com>
Seattle Times staff columnist
The first casualty in the state's war on Internet gambling is a local Web site
where nobody was actually doing any gambling.
What a Bellingham man did on his site was write about online gambling. He
reviewed Internet casinos. He had links to them, and ran ads by them. He fancied
himself a guide to an uncharted frontier, even compiling a list of "rogue
casinos" that had bilked gamblers.
All that, says the state - the ads, the linking, even the discussing - violates
a new state law barring online wagering or using the Internet to transmit
"gambling information."
"It's what the feds would call 'aiding and abetting,' " says the director of the
state's gambling commission, Rick Day. "Telling people how to gamble online,
where to do it, giving a link to it - that's all obviously enabling something
that is illegal."
Uh-oh. This is starting to get a little creepy.
I hadn't been all worked up about the state's crusade against Internet gambling,
including the new law that makes most online betting a felony.
Yes, it's insincere. This is the same state that's happy to enable your online
wagering if you're playing the ponies.
But mostly it seemed the law was unenforceable. And passé. A society steeped in
televised Texas Hold'em and Indian casinos is suddenly supposed to recoil at the
idea of placing bets with a mouse? I figured the law was a bluff.
Then I heard about Todd Boutte. He's a former Wal-Mart worker in Bellingham who
started a casino review called IntegrityCasinoGuide.com
<http://integritycasinoguide.com/> . He worried about the new law but figured
he'd be OK because his site has no actual gambling.
Not so, said the state. Writing about online gambling in a way that seems
promotional can earn a cease-and-desist order, and potentially, a criminal
charge. Boutte learned this when a Bellingham Herald article featured state
officials saying his site was illegal. He later shut it down and is trying to
sell it out of state.
"1984 has finally arrived," Boutte says. "I can't believe this is happening in a
liberal place like Washington."
More may be on the way. The state plans to hire an investigator to enforce the
new law.
Gambling officials told me The Seattle Times may be afoul of the law because we
print a poker how-to column, "Card Shark," by gambler Daniel Negreanu. He
sometimes tells readers to hone their skills at online casinos. And at the end
of each column is a Web address, fullcontactpoker.com
<http://fullcontactpoker.com/> , where readers can comment.
If you type in that address, you whiz off to Negreanu's digital casino based in
the Antilles.
It's a tangled Web, isn't it? The state says we'd best do our part to untangle
it.
"My suggestion to you is to remove from your paper any advice about online
gambling and any links to illegal sites," Day said.
So even this column could be illegal?
The state's gone from trying to control gambling, which is legit, to trying to
control people speaking about gambling.
It's hard to take coming from a state that bombards us with pitches for the
biggest sucker's bet of all. You know, the one they call the lottery.
Danny Westneat's column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086
or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0" id="ad_banner" align="" height="250" width="300">
