Proposed Mississippi I-Gaming Law Could Send You To Jail For 90 Days For Playing On Offshore SitesState Would OK Poker Sites, But Playing On Illegal Ones Would Be Criminal |
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In order to get the freedom to play poker on an online gaming site licensed by the state of Mississippi you’d actually have to give some freedom away in exchange.
Under a current proposal that was just recently introduced into the state legislature, poker players who are caught having accessed offshore poker sites instead of, or in addition to, those licensed and regulated by Mississippi could face up to 90 days in county jail and/or a $10,000 fine.
Offshore sites apparently would be deemed illegal by Mississippi.
There would, unsurprisingly, potentially be much stiffer criminal penalties for those running illegal gambling sites catering to Mississippians, but it’s unusual for the law to target players themselves. Even federal law that was tough on online gambling operators based overseas never went after American poker players who were simply customers on the sites.
The provision in the Mississippi bill is also in stark contrast to initiatives in other U.S. states considering online betting, which would not make the act of playing on an offshore site, while living under a regulated intrastate online poker market, a jailable offense.
In case you are wondering why someone might visit an offshore site if their state had online poker being run by reputable firms located domestically: Since new poker sites take some time to build up liquidity, those launched under a state’s regulatory framework would likely not have the same kind of traffic that an already-existing offshore operator would have.
It takes some time to get people to switch over. Players go to where the games are best.
In 2015, California and the state of Washington are also looking at legalizing online poker. Washington is currently the only state that has a law on the books that makes playing on offshore sites a serious crime, but no one has ever been prosecuted for that, fortunately.
There have been past efforts to repeal the law that never came to fruition which would have reduced the possible punishment to a maximum $50 fine, but the new Washington state online poker bill presumably would automatically take care of shedding the 2006 law.
Under that state’s bill, there would be a penalty in the form of a fine for playing online poker if you are under 18, which would be considered a “class 2 civil infraction.”
Now, the Mississippi online gaming bill is unlikely to pass this year because of a lack of interest on the topic presently. Let’s hope that by the time the state is ready to legalize online poker within the next few years that the provision that would allow the state to jail some poker players is cut out of the bill. California is considered the state most likely to OK web poker this year.
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