GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 31 - February 2015

Santa Ysabel plan to offer Internet gambling in California hits roadblock By Aaron Todd The Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel Tribe's plan to offer intrastate on- line poker and bingo in California hit a major bump in the road in late fall when both state and federal authorities filed lawsuits seeking to shut down the tribe's Internet gambling operations. The California attorney general’s office says that the online bingo site, which began accepting real- money wagers on Nov. 3, violates the tribe's gaming compact, while the U.S. attorney's office says the tribe is violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). The crux of the state's case is the question of where a bet made on the Internet actually takes place. The Santa Ysabel Tribe's state gam- ing compact allows the tribe to conduct Class II gaming on tribal land. The tribe's legal team says that the bet takes place at the loca- tion of the server, while the state maintains that the bet takes place wherever the gambler is located. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck," Deputy Attorney General Bill Ton- gren said in U.S. District Court, according to reporting by the San Diego Union-Tribune . "The state's misguided attack com- pletely ignores existing federal regulations and guidelines," said the tribe in a press release in late November. "This action by the state should be of great concern to all tribes in California and elsewhere because it reflects a tactic that if successful would set a dangerous legal precedent that could be used in other jurisdictions to undermine and attack tribal sovereignty." The result of the case could have implications reaching far beyond California. If the courts determine that the bet takes place at the loca- tion of the server (which is how New Jersey has defined wagers made on the Internet to satisfy a state constitutional provision stating that gambling may only occur in Atlantic City), then tribes in other states would likely also have legal standing to operate In- ternet gambling operations. The Santa Ysabel, however, will still have to overcome the federal UIGEA charges, which allege that the tribe allowed financial transac- tions for illegal Internet gambling, although the law does not define what illegal Internet gambling is. As of press time, no court date was set for the federal case, and the judge in the state case had yet to make a ruling. “We are taking the same principles, practices and integrity that make PokerStars such a successful and beloved brand and applying them to new verticals.” — PokerStars Head of Corporate Communications Eric Hollreiser on the site's decision to launch sports betting and table games globally “ It has created an extremely cost- prohibitive and challenging operating environment.” — Ultimate Gaming Chairman Tom Breitling on the current state-by-state approach to legalizing online gaming in the U.S. 7 Webmaster News & Quotables