The US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is facing mounting pressure to review a Department of Justice’s change-of-heart opinion dating from 2011, where its position on internet gambling was changed dramatically. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) is the latest among several senators who have called on Sessions to explore why the DOJ changed its opinion, where it clarified that the 1961 Wire Act only applied to sports betting. The ruling opened the doors for a number of states to introduce regulated online gambling, including New Jersey.
Warner wrote a letter to AG Sessions on July 5th, stating that, in his opinion, online gambling sites are “especially fertile platforms for the facilitation of money laundering, collusion and other illegal activities.” He also said that the “potentially predatory nature of online gambling represents a heightened threat to economically vulnerable populations.”
Senator Warner urged Sessions to hold true to his promise made during his confirmation hearing regarding the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel’s 2011 opinion that he would “revisit it or make a decision about it based on careful study.”
In his letter penned to Sessions, Warner said that the “OLC opinion appears to be based on legal interpretation alone and does not provide background on the extent to which consideration was given to social, economic and law enforcement implications.”
When Sessions was asked about the issue of online gambling by lawmakers during the confirmation hearing, he reminded them that – as a member of the Senate for the Republican party – he opposed the DOJ’s controversial memo written in 2011. He said that he was “shocked” by the “unusual” memo and said that he would definitely revisit the ruling as acting Attorney General.
The 1961 Wire Act (aka the Interstate Wire Act) prohibits the operation of certain types of betting in the US. In 2011, the US Department of Justice released a formal legal opinion on the act, stating that “interstate transmissions of wire communications that do not relate to sporting event or content fall outside the reach of the Wire Act”. It has been ruled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the prohibition on the transmission of wagers only applies to sports betting and not other types of online gambling.
