RAWA House Hearing Not a Big Hit with OGR Users

The House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee listened to viewpoints on the Restoration of America’s Wire Act on Wednesday, the time that is second has been the topic of the home hearing.
RAWA gets around more, yet continues to be as unloved, as this one girl you went to school with.
AKA the Restoration of America’s Wire Act, RAWA was heard in the House of Representatives on Wednesday during an Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) session titled, ‘A Casino in most Smartphone: Law Enforcement Implications.’
(we are unsure if they were making a play on the old Herbert Hoover slogan ‘A Chicken in almost every Pot’ with that session name, but choice that is interesting anyway.)
Four witnesses brought their expected expertise to Washington, DC, to testify on Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s (R-Utah) legislation that would restore the Wire Act to its pre-2011 interpretation. Four years ago, the Department of Justice ruled that the pre-Internet 1961 law that is federaln’t necessarily prohibit online gambling, effectively opening states to legalize online casinos.
‘We’ve had attorneys that are numerous, numerous governors saying, ‘You can not do that to your state,” Chaffetz said in their remarks. ‘ You just don’t unilaterally change the statutory law having an OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion.
‘ That poses a nagging problem for a lot of states. States that have legalized gambling, states like myself [sic] that have no gaming, and don’t wish to have any video gaming,’ Chaffetz declared.
Determining RAWA
‘ The interpretation of the Wire Act has been a relevant question before 2011 also it remains a question now,’ State Senator Mark Lipparelli (R-Nevada) testified. ‘You have a situation now where you have actually old law who hasn’t kept up with innovation.’
Lipparelli had been instrumental in bringing poker that is online Nevada, as he formerly served once the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Throughout the RAWA hearing, Lipparelli was routinely asked to defend legalization, which he did successfully, in accordance with observers that are many.
Lost throughout the hearing had been a understanding that is central of comprises ‘legal online gambling’ versus ‘illegal online gambling’.
FBI Assistant Director for the Criminal Investigative Division Joseph Campbell provided instances that are several his division has infiltrated unlawful syndicates, concealing their identity online to launder cash. However, when asked to offer accounts of any currently legal and gambling that is regulated’s transgressions in the exact same vein, Campbell said he could maybe not furnish such examples.
Republican South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson swore that his state’s experience with land-based video poker was a huge negative, and that ‘gambling addictions proliferated exponentially.’
‘Despite South Carolina’s continued most readily useful efforts over the decades to protect our residents through the threats posed by gambling, the Department of Justice’s revised interpretation of this Wire Act has opened the door to online gambling, potentially turning any mobile device inside our state in to a virtual casino.’
Nebraska attorney Donald Kleine then also expressed issues about states legalizing gambling on computers and smartphones. ‘on the web gambling easily crosses domestic and worldwide edges and can often be accessed by anyone with online access,’ Kleine explained.
Location, Location, Not Just Location
A provided trepidation among RAWA supporters is that present technology cannot accurately determine the whereabouts of the individual trying to enter a on-line casino. ‘ I think it’s naïve at best to think a wall can be put by you on the web,’ Chaffetz reported.
But Chaffetz, whom also serves once the OGR seat, said his concerns are much more than simply location.
‘Location is … a core part of it, but inaddition it has to do with how old you are, this has related to your intoxication (level), it has to do with a host that is whole of,’ Chaffetz detailed.
Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Alabama) also voiced fears about an adolescent finding a hold of a smartphone with a casino app installed and losing the adult owner’s whole bankroll. Lipparelli responded by declaring that such a concern isn’t specific to online gambling, and it’s no longer dangerous, or simply even less dangerous due to regulated iGaming controls, than a youth receiving a charge card and going shopping that is crazy the net.
Those that did attend seemed apprehensive in voting to have Congress get involved with deciding the fate of online gambling for all 50 states though the majority of the 43 OGR committee members skipped the RAWA discussion.
OGR Website Censored
Viewers can afford to watch the RAWA conversation in its entirety on the OGR website, or watch three carefully chosen excerpts posted underneath the hours-long session.
Though the conference ended up being well-rounded and lively, the 3 clips on the OGR website seems to highlight the best exchanges of primarily RAWA proponents.
Chaffetz’s whole inquiry, which was said to be limited to five minutes, but went for over nine, is available for viewing in its entirety. As are comments from Wilson as he recounts a story where a child that is young in a hot car outside a casino as the mom compulsively gambled inside.
Palmer’s questioning, including his opinion that gambling goals the poor, can also be watched. Palmer was one of, or possibly the only, representative in attendance that came across as in help of RAWA, besides bill sponsor Chaffetz, of course.
Meyer Lansky Heirs Seek Compensation Claim for Cuban Casino
Meyer Lansky, ‘the Mob’s Accountant,’ who fled the Cuban Revolution, leaving his Havana casinos behind him. (Image: museumsyndicate.com)
When Meyer Lansky built the Habana Riviera Hotel and Casino in 1957, Havana was swinging.
It had been, during the time, the largest purpose-built hotel worldwide and Ginger Rogers played on the opening night.
Lansky complained that while Rogers could ‘wiggle her ass’ she ‘couldn’t sing a note that is goddam’ but the renowned Jewish mobster was happy enough.
After all, times had been good: he’d installed himself in the suite that is presidential within initial 12 months he would make $3 million from his brand new project.
But revolution ended up being in the air, and in 1959 Lansky was forced to flee the nation, as was his friend that is great dictator and President of Cuba Fulgencio Batista, under whose patronage the United states Mafia had flourished in Cuba.
Many of Havana’s casinos were damaged in the fighting and looting as Castro’s forces swarmed into town. In 1960 all of Cuba’s hotels were nationalized and gambling became unlawful.
The Door is Open
But, history training aside, now that the united states has restored diplomatic ties with its old foe, there is talk of honoring 50-year-old legal claims relating to the revolutionary confiscation of property, and Lansky’s heirs believe they will have a claim in the Riviera.
Gary Rapoport, a propane that is industrial from Florida and Lansky’s grandson, says that his mother, his uncle and he, as beneficiaries of Lansky’s trust, should be eligible for some type of compensation.
‘The hotel was taken from my grandfather forcefully,’ he told NBC Miami. ‘Cuba owes my family money.’
‘Trust me,’ he continued, ‘I’m perhaps not searching to maneuver down to Cuba and take the business over. I believe my children is entitled to something.
‘ We never filed a claim with the national government or hired an attorney earlier because we don’t think the doorway for negotiating would ever really available. Now it really is open’
‘ Governments change their brain for a lot of various things. I’m looking at it as a businessman,’ he added.
Did Lansky Die Broke?
Meyer Lansky, dubbed the Mob’s accountant, had been a teenage friend of Bugsy Siegel and Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano who would later become the relative head of the Genovese Crime Family. He began their career, with Siegel, operating a bootlegging that is violent during Prohibition, but eventually developed a gambling empire that stretched across the entire world.
Despite a lifelong career in arranged crime, he was never convicted of anything worse than unlawful gambling.
Lansky invested hugely in Cuba, and he was cost by the revolution millions. He was ostensibly broke, although the FBI believed he had squirreled away some $300 million into offshore bank accounts when he died, in 1983 of lung cancer, aged 80.
It is unclear whether his household does have claim regarding the Riviera. The revolutionaries of 1959 were furious because of the corruption of the Batista government and particularly with the real way the dictator had sold off land and assets to the United states Mafia.
Court Bars DraftKings and FanDuel from Operating in New York
Justice Manuel Mendez, whom sided with New York Attorney General Schneiderman today and granted an injunction against DraftKings and FanDuel. (Image: uptowncollective.com)
DraftKings and FanDuel have suffered a blow that is huge their legal battle to continue to operate in the state of New York.
A judge granted the injunction sought by the New York Attorney General’s Office that prevents the operators from taking bets from New Yorkers for the duration of the case today.
FanDuel consented to suspend its operations in the state before the outcome of today’s hearing, while DraftKings had defiantly continued to simply take bets, but must now stop to achieve this.
The signs are ominous for the sites; the court would be unlikely to grant the injunction without strongly favoring the position of the attorney general while this is not the end of the lawsuit between the daily fantasy sports operators and New York.
Legal Skirmishes
The litigation escalated in mid-November when AG Eric Schneiderman wrote cease and desist letters to the two sites informing them that their operations constituted ‘illegal gambling’ under ny legislation.
While nyc’s DFS fans protested regarding the streets, both sites launched appropriate action contrary to the AG’s office in an effort to challenge the opinion and protect their business within the state.
They also launched an unsuccessful request for a short-term restraining order to prevent Schneiderman from issuing the injunction that was issued today.
Lawyers for the sites spent a long time at a New York Assembly hearing on DFS on Tuesday arguing that the practice had been a game of skill and that transparency and player security were paramount to your industry.
‘ We should work with you to ensure that fantasy contests are legal, safe for consumers, and continue to produce the great entertainment value that has driven our growth over the previous several years,’ FanDuel’s counsel for policy and government affairs Cory Fox told put together lawmakers in Albany.
‘ We believe that the path that is best forward for the dream sports industry would be to craft regulatory solutions that will let the millions of users who love dream sports to play.’
Something of Value
But today in court the question that is simple Justice Manuel Mendez was required to answer was whether setting a DFS line-up is a skill or a bet. It is, he replied, the latter.
Web sites’ lawyers had argued that since they had been not taking ‘wagers’ but entry fees DFS could not be viewed as gambling under state legislation, an argument that Mendez dismissed.
‘New York State penal law does maybe not refer to ‘wagering’ or ‘betting,’ rather it states that a person, ‘risks one thing of value,” he said. ‘The payment of a ‘entry fee’ as high as $10,600 on one or more competitions daily could certainly be deemed risking ‘something of value.”