The Washington law and the commerce clause - Page 2

slavic · #11 06-03-2006, 11:19 AM

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someone tired to regulate and organize online poker in North Dakota, and people stayed away in droves!

Rep. Kasper from ND got no support when he tried to legalize poker from the state of north dakota. i wonder if the sites and players will change their tunes if this law gets through?

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Actually he did have support.

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In early 1995 the state of North Dakota decided that it would like to legalize online gambling so that the state could benefit from what it saw as a growing market. It passed HB 1509 that provided for regulation, licensing and taxing of online poker. This sparked a letter from the United States’ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Laura H. Parsky that cited three areas of federal law the North Dakota law would violate. As a result North Dakota dropped its plans for establishing an online gambling friendly state

[/ QUOTE ] Boulard, Garry. Trade rules gamble with state laws. State Legislatures Oct-Nov 2005: 19. 3Pages.

damaniac · #12 06-03-2006, 01:12 PM

ConLaw scholars correct me if I'm wrong, but states have always been able to regulate when it is within the scope of police powers. This includes regulating/banning interstate lotteries from their state, as traditional police powers and moral concerns trump commerce in that context apparently. So given that, it would seem that this is ok.

coachkf · #13 06-03-2006, 07:56 PM

Aye, Kasper's bill passed with no real problems in one part of ND legislature (I think the House?), then the big bad US Dept. of Justice scared everyone in the Senate to kill it.

I was able to attend a workshop at the Casino Affiliate Conference, Las Vegas this past Sept. '05, and Rep. Kasper was the featured speaker. (www.cac2005.com --- A couple of photos of him here during his speech: http://www.cac2005.com/photos-lasvegas-2005.php )

At that time he was holding out hope that they could still pass online poker in North Dakota through a referendum type deal. His bill basically put the revenue the state earned towards property taxes (if I'm remembering correctly) for the people... sooooo who ain't gonna vote for something that drops their property taxes?

No idea if that's went past the "idea" stage though. But in his lecture he said that Raymer came down, all the reps were playing online poker at Stars, seeing how it worked and were very supportive, until the DOJ started wagging their finger at them..