California + Canada + Party Poker = Money Laundering?

[jackflashdrive]

Many professional online poker players have considered getting canadian bank accounts in order to play poker on sites that don't allow US players (there are ways to make it appear that you are playing from canada but that is not the point of this thread). The idea with the canadian account is to transfer money from a poker site to a canadian account, and then from the canadian account to a US account.

Here's the relevant US law on money laundering:


"Whoever [ . . . ] knowing[ly] [ . . . ] conducts or attempts to conduct [ . . . ] a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity [ . . . ] with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity [ . . . ] shall be sentenced to a fine of not more than $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater, or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both."

California law from Chuck Humphrey's website:

California Penal Code Sec. 330. provides: "Every person who plays... any banking or percentage game played with cards... for money, checks, credit, or other representative of value, and every person who plays or bets at or against any of those prohibited games, is guilty of a misdemeanor..."

Humphrey believes it is a misdemeanor to play online poker from California.

PROBLEM

There is little reason to worry about being prosecuted by the state of CA for violation of CA law or by USJD for violation of the wire act (which probably would not hold up). BUT:

It is quite possible that moving money internationally will trigger the scutiny of the vast all-seeing international money laundering gotchha system. If so then it seems to me that you could easily find yourself prosecuted for laundering by Federal officials so inclined (which means up to 20 years in jail, which means losing everything, etc.). It is pretty clear that using canadian accounts and international wires to move funds fits the definition of laundering posted above.

-J