Pennsylvania postponing roll-out of Internet casinos

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has reportedly reacted to a recent ruling from the United States Department of Justice altering the federal government’s stance on the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 by announcing that it intends to postpone the eastern state’s planned roll-out of online casinos.

Committee confession:

According to a Tuesday report from PAOnlineCasino.com, the revelation came from the regulator’s Executive Director, Kevin O’Toole, during a recent budget committee hearing in which he was asked by Pennsylvania Representative George Dunbar to clarify the decision’s possible impact on the local iGaming market.

Intrastate interpretation:

Issued in November, the United States Department of Justice’s latest interpretation of the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 is due to make it almost impossible for iGaming domains to process funds or information originating from outside jurisdictions such as other states. The new stance purportedly reversed a 2011 opinion from the administration of President Barack Obama that had led numerous states such as Pennsylvania to enact legislation designed to legalize a range of iGaming services.

Correspondence caution:

As soon as the federal government’s new take on iGaming was announced, O’Toole reportedly declared that his office had ‘prepared a letter’ that was subsequently sent to every operator that had applied for a Pennsylvania online gaming license.

O’Toole reportedly stated…

“What we wanted to accomplish in that letter was to make sure that the casinos thoroughly read that reinterpretation and looked very closely at their plan for implementing interactive gaming in Pennsylvania.”

Infrastructure aspirations:

PAOnlineCasino.com reported that numerous operators had put in for a Pennsylvania iGaming license under the belief that they would be able to utilize their existing out-of-state server infrastructures. But, O’Toole purportedly stated that the federal government’s latest position makes it ‘quite obvious’ that such enterprises will only be permitted ‘on an intrastate basis’.

O’Toole reportedly stated…

“There had been an expectation that those iGaming operators who were partnering with our casinos in Pennsylvania, if they already had the infrastructure in another jurisdiction that they could leverage that to reduce the cost of implementing iGaming.”

Further action expected:

The regulator reportedly explained that the delay in introducing online casinos to Pennsylvania will give its chief counsel, Douglas Sherman, enough time to make sense of the latest interpretation of the Interstate Wire Act of 1961. It  detailed that it now plans to introduce iGaming this summer after taking steps to further safeguard licensed operators from falling foul of the federal government.