A controversial law enacted last year that makes online gambling a Class C felony in Washington State is now being challenged in a court of law by a Renton attorney.
Lee Rousso filed suit against the State of Washington on Friday, alleging that SB 6613, the bill signed into law last year, is unconstitutional.
Calling it a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause, Rousso said the first legal challenge to the state law also should be the last.
“I think my chances are darn good,” he told the Seattle Post Intelligencer, which itself had concerns over featuring poker related articles that made mention of online poker domains (a la professional player Daniel Negreanu’s popular column that would often feature a link to his own Internet ventures).
The ban, which took effect last spring, specifically prohibited the type of Internet-based card games such as Texas Hold ‘Em that poker players in Washington — Rousso among them — have used to qualify for the annual multimillion-dollar tournament. Rousso said that Washington residents who qualified for the event likely did so through Internet-based tournaments even though it now is a felony to do so.
Susan Arland, spokeswoman for the Washington Gambling Commission, said commission lawyers have not seen the lawsuit and would comment only after they had read it. “We don’t have anything to say just yet,” she said.
Rousso said the state law is flawed. In his complaint in King County Superior Court, he argued that the state measure was passed not to put the state in compliance with the federal wire act — something it does not do anyway, he said — but instead to protect the in-state gambling industry, including card rooms and casinos.
This, he said, puts Washington in clear conflict with the Constitution’s commerce clause, which forbids individual states from passing protectionist laws against other states’ business.
Individuals sentenced for playing online poker in the state of Washington faced prison time usually reserved for child molesters and repeat drug peddlers.
