Whittier Law School Professor of Law I. Nelson Rose argues in a paper presented at an ALI-ABA Conference that the state of Michigan may have inadvertently legalized online gambling. According to Rose, SB 562, a cyber crime bill passed in January, gives operators of licensed gambling facilities the green light to offer their services over the Internet.
Rose sent a copy of the letter to Gov. John Engler's office as well. The Governor's office was unavailable for comment at the time of publishing.
Rose explains in the following paragraph, taken from Rose's paper, how SB 562 actually legalizes online gambling in Michigan:
The most recent state to prohibit/legalize Internet gambling is Michigan. On November 3, 1999, the Michigan House of Representatives passed HB 4689, with the stated purpose of making it a felony to accept a bet on the Internet. It actually would have expressly allowed Michigan licensed gaming operations to take bets on the Internet, but only if expressly authorized by the Legislature - none were. A month later SB 562 passed both houses and was signed into law by Gov. John Engler. SB 562 is broader than HB 4689: it prohibits many crimes from being conducted on the Internet, beyond just
gambling. However, the crimes are no longer given names; the new law prohibits the use of the Internet to commit or attempt a list of specified crimes, defined purely by references to existing statutes. Gambling on the Internet, for example, is not prohibited; SB 562 only makes it a crime to use a computer for communicating with a person with the purpose of "Committing, attempting to commit, conspiring to commit, or soliciting another person to commit conduct proscribed under section 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 305a, or 311 of this act [1931 PA 328, which created the Michigan criminal code] or section 18 of the Michigan gaming control and revenue act, the Initiated Law of 1996, MCL 432.218." Those sections listed are the state's anti-gambling statutes. But, they expressly exclude all forms of legalized gambling in the state. This means that the prohibition on using the Internet for gambling is far from universal: Michigan's state lottery, racetracks, bingo and casinos do not even have to seek a second approval from the Legislature, as they would have had to under HB4689 to play their games online.
Footnotes: SB 562, now designated Public Law 235 of 1999, enacted December 28, 1999, takes effect March 10, 2000. The bill would have added a new section, 315B, to the Michigan Penal Code. It amended section 145d (MCL 750.145d) of the penal code. As with the case of Nevada's licensees, Michigan's legal gambling operations are going to wait until the federal law is clarified before taking bets online.
Copyright © 2000 Professor I. Nelson Rose, www.GamblingAndTheLaw.com.
"Gambling and the Law" is a registered trademark of Professor I. Nelson Rose.
Rose's paper will appear in "Gambling and the Law®: The Future of Internet Gambling," to be published by the Villanova Sports and Entertainment Law Journal.