Minnesota Online Gambling Fight Rages On

May 13, 2009

The online gambling fight in Minnesota is just heating up. For those that missed it, Minnesota decided that online gambling was illegal and invoked an archaic law that said that wire transfers for the sake of sports betting were illegal. The law was written well before online gambling even existed, which means that it cannot cover the recent expansion in gambling.

However, Minnesota contacted phone companies and ISPs to tell them that they were to block all communication to and from the online gambling sites starting immediately. The residents of the state are very upset over the state�s stance on online gambling and have taken to their representatives to do something about what they call an absolute infringement on their rights as private citizens.

But State Representative Pat Garofalo from Farmington says that it is wrong what the state government is trying to do and has introduced a bill that would stop the state from keeping their citizens from online gambling. He says that the state has much bigger problems to worry about than what people are doing in their own homes. He says that �demanding a private sector [ISP] provider block access to websites is not a proper function of [their] state government.�

So far there has not been any indication on the part of the ISPs or the phone companies that they are complying with the government�s request. Garofalo says that he is not in support of online gambling, but he does have a real problem with the state telling people what they can do and what online gambling sites they are or are not allowed to visit.







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