On January 24th, Democrat Senator Louise Lucas introduced SB 1126 which seeks to legalize casino games such as table, dice and slot games in the state. The bill proposes that casinos be restricted to cities that have an unemployment rate of at least 4% and a poverty rate of 20%. Each eligible city will be issued with one casino license. Sports betting will also be allowed, although there will be no provision for online gambling or wagering.  Venues will need to pay a 10% gross revenue tax, and local governments will also get a piece of the pie.

This week, two more bills cleared the Committee.

SB 1238, which was introduced by Senator Chapman Peterson, seeks the establishment of the Virginia Sports Betting Department. Only land-based sports betting will be allowed, thereby barring online and mobile betting.

A three year license, initially costing $5,000, will be issued to operators. Renewing the license will cost $1,000. In addition, operators will have to pay a 10% tax on adjusted gross revenue and the Sports Betting Department will hold onto 2.5% of that amount to defray the costs of administering the program.

The second bill introduced this week, SB 1356, also calls for the legalization of sports betting in Virginia. Senator Frank Wagner’s bill plans to rename the Virginia Lottery Board the Virginia Lottery and Sports Wagering Commission, and will allow consumers to bet on all sports except on those where teams are based in Virginia. It also allows betting on college events.

Both bills will now make their way to the Virginia Senate Finance Committee where they will be debated.

The new opinion is an update of a 2011 DOJ opinion that the Wire Act only applies to sports betting. On January 14th of this year, the newly released opinion revoked that assumption and stated that the Act in fact applies to all forms of online gambling – including online poker.

There are now four states where online poker is regulated – Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey, where online poker sites are already up and running, and Pennsylvania which has not yet launched its industry. Plans are that online gambling sites will be launched later this year.  The question now remains how – or if – Pennsylvania’s gambling authority will move ahead, following the publication of the new opinion.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board recently issued a brief statement regarding the new opinion. The authority’s Communications Director, Douglas Harbach told OPR: “We must thoroughly review and discuss the opinion to gauge any ramifications to gaming activities in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, as Pennsylvania’s current gaming is all intrastate and legal within the borders of the state, we will continue to regulate the legal forms of gaming as provided for in the Gaming Act.”

Many agree that if Pennsylvania’s fledgling online poker industry has a chance for success it will have to enter into an interstate compact with the other three states. The authority, however, may feel that it would be too much of a risk to do so, considering the new opinion, and if this happens, some operators may believe that investing in an online poker license may not be worth their dollars.

It is still early days to see which direction the industry will take, and it will all depend on how the opinion is interpreted by courts and regulators across the nation.

The VP of Interactive Gaming at Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment, Aviram Alroy said in a statement: “We’ve aligned with one of the best online casino and sportsbook operators in online regulated markets which will allow us to offer best in class experience to our existing customers as well as attracting new ones.”

Alroy said that the introduction of the Kindred offering to the market is of great benefit to Mohegan Sun, as well as the state of Pennsylvania.

Players will be asked to open an account and register so that the casino can verify that they are 21 years of age or older. They are then able to use their mobile or web devices to place a bet through the online sports book.  Geolocation software will be used to ensure that the players are based within state lines.

Regarding the question of when the products will go live, Alroy said that Mohegan Sun Pocono, together with Kindred, was working with the Pennsylvania regulator and plans were being made to launch as soon as all sides were confident that there would be a strong offering in the market.

The eight state senators who filed the bill:

• Mary Daugherty Abrams
• Dennis Bradley
• Steven Cassano
• Christine Cohen
• Bob Duff
• Julie Kushner
• Martin Looney
• Norman Needleman

The bill will allow sports betting on certain sports events. The state legislature will be responsible for developing a regulatory framework for the industry.

The eight senators have now referred SB 665 to the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Security.

As soon as the US Supreme Court ruled on the unconstitutionality of PASPA last year, thereby opening the gates for legal sports betting across the country, Connecticut started checking its options – as did many other states. Governor Dannel Mallot did not immediately rule out the idea and in August 2018, even said that he would consider legal sports betting before he left office in January this year.  Interest groups only had a short window of time to present their proposals to the governor.

Malloy told The Connecticut Mirror at the time: “The bottom line is in the last few weeks real action has taken place. People have started to move in a direction where I think an agreement could ultimately be reached with respect to who could operate within our state, how they would operate within their state, what could be bet on, and the like. It’s possible an agreement could be reached and legislative action could be called upon. I asked them for input on that matter, whether they intend to come into session.”

However, Malloy’s predictions did not come to fruition and talks broke down soon afterwards, when an agreement with two Native American tribes could not be reached by the required date.

Now, with the opening of the new session under Malloy’s successor, Governor Ned Lamont, it remains to be seen if Connecticut will adopt legal sports betting once and for all.

Wellenbach announced that he would be donating his hundreds of thousands to his favorite charities that include Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders. In an interview to CBC, he said that he had a deal with the “poker gods” that they would send him good results if, in return, he gave his winnings away.

“How can you not love this guy?” PokerStars tweeted after Wellenbach made its intentions known.

While he admits that gambling contradicts Buddhist teaches, the player says that the game offers some insights into the ancient teachings. “Poker gives you a tremendous opportunity to work with the heavens and hells of your mind,” he said. “You’re winning and losing every minute-and-a-half, and so some sense of how your hopes and fears go up and down with the passing circumstance of the world is brought to fore at the poker table.”

After winning a free trip to Las Vegas in 2010, Wellenbach fell in love with the game of poker. He went on to play at tournaments, winning, at the most, $72,000.  It wasn’t after he landed at the Main Event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Tournament in the Bahamas that he earned a whopping $671,240.

“I guess I rationalize my addiction by giving away the winnings, saying “Well, at least I’m doing good things with it,” he said.

The 67-year-old works as a translator of Buddhist teachings from Sanskrit and Tibetan but said that he will continue playing his favorite game in order to do more good in the world.

The governor said that he was keen to place Massachusetts among the ranks of seven other states that have moved to legalize and regulate sports betting, including the neighboring Rhode Island, since the US Supreme Court’s decision last year. The higher court made it legal to wager on sports outside of Nevada, spurning many states to take their industries into their own hands.

In the radio interview, Governor Baker said about sports betting: “It’s legal, it’s going to start happening in a lot of other states… and, I think, from our point of view, it’s a conversation we need to have.”

The highlights of Baker’s bill:

• Betting will only be allowed on professional sports – no collegiate or amateur sporting events.
• Only adults over 21 will be allowed to place sports bets.
• The Massachusetts Gaming Commission will oversee the sports wagering industry.
• Operators will pay a $100,000 application fee + a licensing fee every five years of at least $500,000.
• Online wagering licensees will pay a tax rate of 12.5%. In-person sports gambling licensees will pay 10%.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Governor Baker said: “Our legislation puts forth a series of commonsense proposals to ensure potential licensees are thoroughly vetted and safeguards are in place to protect against problem gambling and illegal activity. We look forward to working with our colleagues in the Legislature to pass this bill into law.”

Who will become the main players in the Pennsylvania online poker market? We will be seeing familiar names such as PokerStars, 888Poker and PartyPoker – sites which have become almost household names among online poker fans. PokerStars has linked with Mounty Airy, Harrah’s will be courting the WSOP, Caesars and 888Poker brands, while Valley Forge has partnered with PartyPoker.com.  We will also see a bevy of newcomers to the market. Time will tell how they fit in with the more established brands and what they have to offer in this cut-throat market.

Players may be wondering how they will be able to pay for their online poker entertainment. If truth by told, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has not yet made public the names of the deposit and withdrawal methods that will be available to players. It is believed that this is among the issues still being hammered out by the authority before real money online games go live.

Looking ahead, it is still not clear if Pennsylvania will consider joining the current tri-state compact signed between New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware.  Many believe that it is absolutely critical for the success of the state’s online poker industry that Pennsylvania joins this compact, as lack of player liquidity is the number one reason for a site’s failure.  By joining the compact, the player pool for licensed online poker games will literally double the numbers for US online poker players. One hurdle to this however, is that for Pennsylvania to join, all four states must give their approval. For the time being, players will be limited to intrastate online gambling via geolocation technology.

Now, the technology used for Libratus to beat the poker players – known as computational game theory – has been adapted for government use. The professor who led the Carnegie Mellon U project, Tuomas Sandholm, created a startup called Strategy Robot with the objective of using the same technology for the Pentagon to use in war games and simulations to explore military strategy. Strategy Robot inked a two-year $10 million deal with the US Army last year. The will support a relatively new military unit called the Defense Innovation Unit.

The developers are keeping mum on the military projects that Libratus will work on, for obvious security reasons. However, it is known that the bot can make suggestions regarding where to place military units for example.

According to an article in Wired, “pro pokers who took on the bot found that it flipped unnervingly between tame and hyper-aggressive tactics, all the while relentlessly notching up wins as it calculated paths to victory.”

The article quoted Prof. Sandholm as saying: “That opens yourself up to a lot of exploitation, because the real adversary may not play according to your assumptions.”

A second startup, called Strategic Machine, has been founded – also based on the bot’s technology – which is being used in commercial settings.

Until the December numbers were out, it was thought that November would be the highest revenue generating month of 2018, but it was then announced that December’s online total reached $2 million higher.

More good news came from the online poker sector which saw an improvement compared to the previous month’s numbers. Analysts agree, however, that there is still much room for improvement.

Other highlights of the December 2018/full year 2018 report were as follows:

• The online casino sector contributed significantly to December’s numbers, showing 45% growth to $27.2 million.
• The full year 2018 online revenue growth was just under $300 million – a 21.6% improvement compared to 2017’s total.
• Overall, online poker fell 11.8% in 2018 to $21.4 million.
• The online casino platforms belonging to the Golden Nugget group did exceptionally well as usual, with revenue of $10.2 million in December. Overall, in 2018, the Golden Nugget’s online gambling revenue improved over 50% compared to 2017’s results to $104.85 million.
• Total gaming taxes were $21.8 million (8% of taxable casino gross revenue, 15% of online gaming gross revenue, 8.5% on casino and racing sports betting gross revenue and more).

Sports betting analyst for PlayNJ.com, Dustin Gouker lent his two cents on the sports betting sector in New Jersey.

“New Jersey’s strong month actually bucks a trend seen in Nevada, where sports betting typically cools a bit in December,” he said. “Growth in a typically slower month crystalizes the strength of New Jersey’s growing sports betting market. The popularity of online sports betting is a chief reason, making it easier for gamblers to place bets, even as the time demands of the holiday season are in full bloom.”

The 2018 opinion states: “The Criminal Division has asked us to reconsider the 2011 Opinion’s conclusion that the Wire Act is limited to sports gambling…. We do not lightly depart from our precedents, and we have given the views expressed in our prior opinion careful and respectful consideration. Based upon the plain language of the statute however, we reach a different result. While the Wire Act is not a model of artful drafting, we conclude that the words of the statute are sufficiently clear and that all but one of its prohibitions sweep beyond sports gambling. We further conclude that the 2006 enactment of UIGEA did not alter the scope of the Wire Act.”

Analysts are scrambling to decipher this new opinion. The general feeling is that it won’t alter the scope of online gambling in the United States and that legal intrastate online gambling and online poker sites are not threatened for now. But there is now a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the US gambling industry, and some admit that the DOJ opinion may affect areas where it didn’t even intent to hit, including intrastate online casino and online poker, daily fantasy sports, online lottery sales and more.

The Department of Justice admits that it foresees legal battles if it decides to enforce the opinion, especially since its opinion is in direct conflict with some federal courts. Nor will online gambling operators or state officials take the reversal of the opinion lying down, especially since many states based their introduction of online lottery sales on the 2011 opinion in the first place.