Washington DC Becomes First Jurisdiction In The US To Legalize Online Gambling

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According to gambling911.com, Washington, D.C., has become the first jurisdiction in the United States to legalize online gambling.

“The Associated Press reported late Tuesday that permitting online gambling was part of a 2011 budget and a 30-day period for Congress to object expired last week, said D.C. Council, member Michael A. Brown, who authored the provision.”

“There was really no clear law that said we could not do this,” Brown said last week.

“Bets would have to be placed within the District of Columbia.”

“Unlike previous state measures such as those recommended in New Jersey, which failed to pass legislation last month, those betting from Washington, DC would not be required to actually live there.”

“In addition to online poker, Washington, DC could also offer other forms of Web gambling including casino games and sports betting.”

“Officials estimate between $13 million to $14 million to come into the District through fiscal year 2014 as a result of the new industry.”

You can read more about this at nbcwashington.com

For gambling domain name owners legalization of online casino and poker in the US would be HUGE.

Other states including New Jersey,  Iowa and Florida have or are considering legalizing online gambling in one form or another.

 

 

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. rkb says

    Great News!

    Bring it on. We have over 300 gems waiting to online gmbling to become leagl in USA.

    Hopefully other stats or perhaps federal gov will do the same soon.

  5. Pat says

    Great news, indeed!

    But the Justice Department might still weigh in and squash DC’s hopes to be the first out of the gate, though they have declined comment so far.

    I, for one, hope they remain silent.

  7. BrianWick says

    A huge blow for the Lottery which relies so heavily of welfare money – now welfare money has other options.

    I knew I had a reaspn to hang on the CheapBets.com and countless others

  8. Odalicio says

    Funny…..It’ll be mostly the politicians will be the first allowed to bet. I wonder if that was a coincidence?

    .

  11. BullS says

    Don’t forget, while you are pulling the handles, take a couple of my high grade organic cannabis.It will add more luck.

    Sooner than later, marijuana will be legal which is already in WA.

    Those old politicians will DIED…and will be taken over by opened minded young generation.

    HIPAA policy will be gone too as the new generation takes over the Capitol .

  12. BrianWick says

    Socialism 101:
    Control citizens via:
    Subsidized Cigarettes – (they could be 10 times the amount and the same number would be sold)
    Subsidized Alcohol
    Legalized Weed – (So they sit around all day fully baked & a fully unemployed waiting for their “genius” politicians to fix the world)
    Gambling – keep them in debt

    Sounds like a recipe to elect or get reelected

  13. John says

    I can see the distracted politicians placing their bets on their iPhones while sitting there in the capital voting and trying to get this things done for our country’s future.

    Yeah, I can see that…lol

  15. Dean says

    There are still too many hurdles to pass, to get too smug yet, but it is looking hopeful.

  17. LS Morgan says

    Been a while since I hand registered open names, but I did mop up the remaining few (State)Gaming.com’s (there were 5 or 6 left, including a couple very desirable ones.)

    If anyone cares, (StateAbbreviation)Gaming.com’s are pretty much gone too, save for the following

    MNGaming.com
    TNGaming.com
    WVGaming.com
    WYGaming.com

    At this stage, probably worth a pull at Godaddy for $7.49 and hold for a few years to see how the state gaming issue turns out…

  18. LS Morgan says

    Oh, and in (State)Gambling, all are gone.

    (StateAbbreviation)Gambling.com, these are left.

    COGambling
    DEGambling
    GAGambling
    IDGambling
    ILGambling (<- decent. A current buzz issue)
    MNGambling
    MT
    NC
    MD
    NE
    NH
    NM
    OR
    TN
    UT
    VA
    VT
    WY

    I greatly prefer "gaming" because the industry does, but in case my estimation sucks, here ya go.

  19. BrianWick says

    Gaming is the industry term – but not as much a term incorporated in a brand a user is after.
    That said StateGaming.com’s would be ideal as a resource where all the good gaming areas are in a state – i.e. making them a value domain to keep in your portfolio

  20. Dean says

    I’ve known about this for almost a week and even sent a link from a WSJ article that came out on April, 8 to TheDomains only to have it bounce back. Needless to say I registered what I consider to be the best available “DC” names several days ago.

  24. BrianWick says

    MQJ
    I have CheapBets.com and CheapGambling.com – I do not like terms that incorporate gambling – where as prior posted by LS – I like domains with “gaming” in them better.

    All said – just new ways for personal debt to catch up with national debt

  25. Mike D says

    Have any of you ever been to DC lately? Nobody is gambling there at night on a computer thats for sure, maybe shooting dice on some corner. At night that place is for rapists, robbers and crack-heads only. The percentage of African Americans who gamble online is extremely small due to cultural preference of being surrounded by friends, not plinking away on a computer alone.

    So who exactly is gonna be gambling in DC besides the tourists safely locked in hotels? DC is like the worst part of Baltimore on steroids. Might as well invest in one 8 dollar share in a Saudi Arabia Casino complex to be opened after liberalization of islam in mecca.

  26. BFitz says

    @ Mike D
    The DC market is essentially recession proof and had one of the most affluent suburbs in the country. When the economy tanks, the government steps in and ever four years there is a new in-flux of people yet many from prior political offices stay. Folks will come in from the suburbs and yes the international tourism is huge with 200K searches a month for hotels there. Bars will have laptops set up for suburbanites to sit and gamble. There are also about a dozen universities including the most expensive public college in the country. Gambling will do fine.

  28. M says

    “The software would not be up and runninng until it was shown that [it could determine the bet placers were actually located in DC when placing bets].”

    What’s the threshhold? Do they have to show conclusively the bet placers are in DC? Or just with a 99% probability?

    I highly doubt legislators even know the right questions to ask.

  29. Dean says

    M,
    it should be relatively easy in this day and age to track an IP address to see where it is coming from, but this is just one of the many hurdles they have yet to overcome and why it’s not a done deal yet. They are only going to get one shot at this and they are going to have to be very precise in their execution, unless they want to get shut down by the dept of Justice or bogged down for another couple of years in government redtape.

  30. Jared says

    i’ve got:

    GamingDC.com

    BettingDC.com

    BetOnlineDC.com I will sell reasonably if anyone is interested! visit BestInvestmentEver.org

  31. M says

    Dean: I’m aware that geo-based IP tracking is not foolproof. And I know it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to stop people from offering or using proxied connections. And then, as demonstrated by the efforts of music copyright holders, you see the difficulty in prosecuting people based on IP address. And what about people who are outside the US who might gain access? Whether all this matters to the regulators I’m not sure. The kids who pitched Hulu to the media companies managed to convince them that they could identify users’ locations. But of course there are people outside of the authorised locations who are accessing Hulu. The media companies thought Hulu’s efforts worked “well enough” to go ahead with the plan or maybe they were just clueless. Not sure which.

    It’s interesting that the software will be provided to DC from a non-US company.

  33. Scott says

    Heyo,

    MB: I don’t mean to turn this into a pitch-fest, but I couldn’t resist when I saw the tack it was taking. If inappropriate, please delete.

    Here’s hoping that this legalization announcement lights a fire under the asses of those who have been looking for some useful gambling and poker domains.

    It’s been a long dry spell for some of those of us who have been ‘nurturing’ poker domains for a while, even those do mains that come in the all important and premium priced .com and .net combo. The .net version for free play that can be advertised on TV and the .com version for the actual playing site accepting the bets.

    These were hand-regged several years ago. I’ve had dozens of requests to sell but have held off until the US started to come around. Maybe now is the time to dust them off…

    2 of the 3 pairs are the shortest possible (to my knowledge) poker combinations available that make sense:

    PokerDJ.com and PokerDJ.net (disc jockey theme)

    DJPoker.com and DJPoker.net, and my favorite

    PeerPoker.com and PeerPoker.net

    Let’s see if it awakens any of those sleepy gamblers…

    Cheers,

  37. NetJohn says

    Breaking News :

    Major Online Poker operators indicted for fraud….PokerStars included

    http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/15/news/economy/online_poker_indictments/index.htm

    US Attorney and FBI ,” announced the unsealing
    of an Indictment today charging eleven defendants, including the
    founders of the three largest Internet poker companies doing
    business in the United States – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and
    Absolute Poker (the “Poker Companies”)- with bank fraud, money
    laundering, and illegal gambling offenses. The United States
    also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture
    complaint (the “Civil Complaint”) against the Poker Companies,
    their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for
    the Poker Companies.

    In addition, restraining orders were issued
    against more than 75 bank accounts utilized by the Poker
    Companies and their payment processors, and five Internet domain
    names used by the Poker Companies to host their illegal poker
    games were seized.”

  38. Dean says

    Don’t count your chickens before the eggs hatch…
    three of the largest U.S. Poker sites got seized and shut down this morning. I posted the below on Elliots blog…

    “I was using FTP as one of my affiliates and just took down all their links and banners. I find it interesting how the timing of this coincides with the DC legislation passing.

    In my estimation this could play out two ways,.. either the government is really cracking down on any and all forms of online gambling, meaning the DC legislation is doomed or they are starting to clean up outside unregulated companies in anticipation of taxing and regulating online gaming themselves.

    I hope it’s the latter, as I knew about the DC regulation days before it was known to the domain world and registered some pretty killer names.

    Let’s see how this plays out”