Online Gambling Not Likely in Washington DC

June 20, 2011 | News Category: Gaming Law

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Not so long ago, there was much excitement in the online gambling world in the United States, and in Washington DC in particular, when the Washington DC Council made the decision that online gambling would be permissible in the Washington DC district.

Since this decision was made, the United States has been in an upheaval as far as online gambling is concerned, with the federal authorities seizing a number of online gambling sites, and freezing the accounts of many financial institutions, especially e-wallet solutions that were processing payments for online casinos and other online gambling sites that provided their services for those living in the US. The Washington Post, however, recently reported that the possibility of legal online gambling in the Washington DC area is likely to be very short-lived.

The councilors are now questioning what the actual motives of Michael A. Brown were when he originally proposed the plan. There have been requests for a new look at the plan to make Washington DC the first legal online gambling jurisdiction in the US, and there are also those that wish to look into Mr. Brown's activities.

There will be a public hearing that will take place in front of the council's finance and revenue committee on June 29th. Jack Evans is the chair of the committee. Mr. Evans had originally planned to have a more informal roundtable discussion, but since there has been so much controversy surrounding the online gambling legislation, he has made the decision to formalize the proceedings somewhat.

It is surprising that the questions that will be broached only arose after the decision to legalize gambling in the jurisdiction was made, although much of the information only came to light after the decision.

It seems that Mr. Brown was in the employ of a law firm with gambling interests, and while he claims that there is no conflict of interests because the law firm had no interests from which they would have benefited by the new law. He is also not currently employed by the firm, Edwards Angell Palmer and Dodge.

Another issue is that the online gambling measure went through because it was slipped into the city's supplemental budget. It seems that there was no hearing and also no debate. The warnings given by the attorney general and the chief financial officer of Washington DC that noted that it is unclear whether US federal law really permits online gambling in this form were not heeded.