HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.
![handle is hein.crs/govzhq0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
Justice Department Reverses Stand on
Gambling Statute
March 6, 2019
In January, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announced that the Justice Department's Office of
Legal Counsel (OLC) had determined that a federal gambling statute, the so-called Wire Act, applied to
both sports gambling and non-sports gambling. The OLC opinion reversed an earlier pronouncement
issued in 2011. The 2011 OLC Memorandum itself had contradicted a long-held understanding within the
Justice Department. The Deputy Attorney General instructed the federal prosecutors and Federal Bureau
of Investigation to delay acting on the change of interpretation for 90 days to give businesses that relied
on the 2011 OLC [Memorandum] time to bring their operations into compliance with federal law. Media
accounts report that the recent interpretation may impact emerging interstate internet gambling ventures
including internet poker and state lotteries.
The Issue
The Wire Act, parsed, enumerated, and with emphasis added for purposes of discussion, states in pertinent
part:
Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire
communication facility
[1] for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of [a] bets or wagers or [b] information
assisting in the placing of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or
[2] for the transmission of a wire communication [a] which entitles the recipient to receive money
or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or [b] for information assisting in the placing of bets or
wagers,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
The issue from the beginning has been whether the term on any sporting event or contest refers to the
bets or wages in [1][a], [1][b], [2][a], and [2][b] or only to the bets or wages in [1][b] or possibly only on
bets or wages in [1][a] and [1][b]. The 2011 OLC Memorandum determined the term applied to all four
prohibitions. The recent OLC Opinion concludes that the term only applies to [1][b], information assisting
the placing of bets or wagers, and that the other prohibitions apply to sports and non-sports gambling
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB10269
CRS Legal Sidebar
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govzhq0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)