Late last week, the Obama Administration made public a September Department of Justice ruling that stated New York and Illinois could use out-of-state vendors to process lottery transactions. This is a reversal of a rule that has been in place since the 1961 passage of the Wire Act, which was meant to ban wagering over phone lines crossing state borders. According to Reuters: “The new interpretation, by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, said the Wire Act applies only to bets on a ‘sporting event or contest,’ not to a state’s use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets to adults within its borders or abroad.” In other words, no betting on sports like football or basketball or horse racing, but if states want to open up a virtual poker palace, then okay.
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