After the Queens County DA's Office on Nov. 15 issued a multiple-count indictment of those allegedly connected to the Playwithal.com sportsbook, speculation arose regarding the case's description as Internet-gambling-related.
While Playwithal maintained a Web site, uncertainty persisted as to whether the operation actually handled online betting.
The case raises questions related to state and federal law pertaining to gambling businesses, but before addressing these questions in the scope of I-gaming law, one must determine whether it even involves online gambling.
IGN asked attorney and former DOJ official Ken Dreifach:
Where does the Playwithal case fall on the U.S. legal spectrum?
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". . . The prosecution more resembles a traditional organized crime case than the targeting of a more conventional, above-board online sports book."
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Ken Dreifach: The prosecution of Playwithal does have two hallmarks of the types of cases that federal and state authorities have brought against online gambling: It involves a sports book, and it took at least some bets over the telephone.
That said, based on the allegations in the indictment and accompanying papers, the prosecution more resembles a traditional organized crime case than the targeting of a more conventional, above-board online sports book. For instance, the alleged methods of asset transfer, the multiple levels of reporting, the alleged frequent changes in cell phones and the collection of debts all had off-line components very different from the operations of more conventional online gambling sites.
In fact, one of the most controversial aspects of the case may be the government's inclusion of Prolexic Technologies as a defendant. As a company that primarily provides security against denial of service attacks--in other words, security against cyber-terrorists who may extort ransoms--they are in the grand scheme of things generally seen by law enforcement as the good guys. It will be interesting to see how their defenses play out. Indeed, one recent federal case suggested that in some circumstances, Internet service providers may have affirmative civil rights claims to assert under the federal CDA, when they are unfairly targeted by law enforcement.
Ken Dreifach is one of the country's foremost Internet lawyers, with unique experience in the government sector. Until the end of April, he was chief of New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer's Internet Bureau, which coordinates statewide law enforcement efforts regarding online consumer fraud, privacy, securities trading, gambling, access for the disabled and other Internet-related issues. He joined the law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (where he now counsels clients on their rights under proposed I-gaming laws) as partner on May 15. He also chairs the Information Law Technology Committee.