In a recent decision that inures to the benefit of the online
gambling industry, a federal district court in New Hampshire held
that the "the text, context, and structure of the Wire
Act" limit its applicability to sports gambling, and not to
other types of gambling. On June 3, the court in New Hampshire
Lottery Commission v. Barr, set aside a 2018 Department of Justice
(DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion (the 2018 OLC opinion), which concluded that the
Wire Act applied beyond sports gambling. The court's order
leaves in place a prior 2011 OLC opinion that reached the opposite
conclusion—that the Wire Act criminalizes the use of
interstate/foreign wires for sports gambling but not other forms of
gambling. The DOJ may still appeal the court's decision, but
for now, this decision provides some clarity in the law regarding
the Wire Act's applicability to non-sport-related gambling.
