Washington State taken to court over online gambling ban

It seems that the row over online gambling in the USA, as reported in our casino news page on a number of occasions, promises to continue as Washington State is taken to task by Poker players. In the latest casino news it appears that the Poker Players Alliance has managed to get through a number of court actions and appeals and reach the Washington Supreme Court with a claim that the State law which makes gambling at an online casino illegal but allows gambling at land based casinos is contrary to the Commerce Act and discriminates against one section of the industry which is not allowed. The Alliance claims in the casino news that the only people to benefit from this discrimination are the casinos run by Indian tribes that are regulated by the State. In its defence the State represented by Assistant Attorney General Ackerman claimed that online casinos could not be regulated and therefore were not safe, a point disputed by the Alliance. Online gambling is regulated in other parts of the world with no problem and according to the Alliance it would be up to the State to prove that it could not be regulated which if they were unable to do would leave then having to provide a regulated environment. This piece of casino news could be very interesting for the future development of the online casino industry in the USA and we shall follow it with interest. It seems that Washington State already has regulated online horse race betting so knows a thing or two about regulating the industry and the judge of the case seems very interested in the difference between the games played online and those played at the Indian run casinos which as we know is virtually nothing.