When Washington’s gambling laws were first passed in 1973, they were molded by these words:
“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the Legislature, recognizing the close relationship between professional gambling and organized crime, to restrain all persons from seeking profit from professional gambling activities in this state.”
To that end, the state intended “to restrain all persons from patronizing such professional gambling activities; to safeguard the public against the evils induced by common gamblers and common gambling houses engaged in professional gambling.”
That quaint-sounding 35-year-old law was the first trickle of legalized gambling in the state, permitting things such as charitable bingo and “Reno nights” for nonprofit groups as well as punchboards, pull tabs and card rooms that were only to stimulate food and drink sales in bars and taverns.
Otherwise, gambling was evil. That’s why the gambling act is in the criminal code, right between “Frauds and Swindles” and “Glue Sniffing.”
Then the trickle became a torrent. The Legislature created the state lottery in 1982 and in the ’90s let those back-of-the-tavern card rooms become casinos banked by the house.
Toss in the federal government’s gift of tribal casinos and Washington is as close to a wide-open gambling state as you can get without declaring the state wide open.
Politicians say they want to stop expansions and then approve more commercial gambling and acquiesce to larger and more numerous tribal casinos. The only gambling that’s disappearing is charitable gambling.
This is one genie that isn’t going back in the bottle, not with all the campaign cash that flows from all those gambling profits. While there are a handful of lawmakers who think gambling hurts people, the only difference between most Democrats and most Republicans is that the former prefer tribal gambling and the latter prefer commercial gambling.
But here’s the odd thing. That law about the evils of “professional gambling” and the intent to restrain anyone from profiting from such activity is still on the books and still governs state gambling policy.
Rather than step up and admit that it’s archaic, rather than repeal it when all of those bills expanding gambling were passed, lawmakers left it in place. And now the courts have to try to give it effect and perform the verbal gymnastics that reconcile an anti-gambling policy with a wide-open reality.
Two recent state appeals courts use the same statute in rulings that went in opposite directions. First, judges in Seattle said the state had a right to ban Internet poker even if the servers are in other states or other nations.
The Division I court of appeals said the state can interfere in interstate and international commerce and ban residents from playing on sites such as Pokerstars because of the state’s “longstanding and legitimate interest in tightly controlling gambling.”
Then, judges in Tacoma said an Internet service that matched up bettors and was closed by the Gambling Commission is legal. That service, called Betcha.com, was an eBay-like service where bettors could find someone to bet with. But because the Web site said losers weren’t obligated to pay up – even though they would be blacklisted from the site if they didn’t – it wasn’t really gambling.
And if it wasn’t really gambling, then it wasn’t “professional gambling” and wasn’t subject to state bans on bookmaking and Internet gambling.
So we don’t allow professional gambling but get around it by declaring that stuff that looks and smells like professional gambling really isn’t. And since it isn’t, it’s OK for residents to patronize and profit from actual casinos, but it’s illegal for them to patronize and profit from virtual casinos – at least the ones that make you pay when you lose.
And that, as much as anything else, illustrates why our state gambling policy is as messed up as it is.
Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657
peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com
blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics
