U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro issued a ruling striking down the new opinion on the scope of the 1961 Wire Act. The DOJ’s new opinion claimed that the Wire Act applied to nearly all forms of online gambling, contradicting its 2011 opinion on the same subject—which the New Hampshire Lottery Commission (NHLC) challenged. In his ruling, Barbadoro said “this is no hypothetical case” because the NHLC faced “a sufficiently imminent threat of enforcement.” Barbadoro’s ruling will take the heat off states about to launch their first online casino and poker operations, although the DOJ will undoubtedly appeal the ruling up the legal food chain.
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