Minnesota Backs Down on Gambling Ban

After coming out all guns blazing with demands to block online gambling websites, Minnesota's Department of Public Safety (DPS) has now backed down.

This saga started early last month when the DPS sent letters to a number of Minnesota customer facing regional and national ISP's demanding that they block access to 200 named websites. The ISP's were given a month to respond to the demand.

The story then took a slightly comical twist when it was revealed that the 'blacklist' of websites to be blocked included a number of websites that didn't accept US customer accounts anyway. One of the sites was Party Poker, whose no-US-player policy was made clear to anyone who had had an eye on the news in recent months with their high profile $105 million settlement with the US justice Department.

In addition to not doing their homework on the list of 200 websites, authorities reliance on the Wire Wager Act as the legal basis for the demand was quickly challenged by online gambling and internet freedom advocate organization iMEGA. iMEGA filed a lawsuit against the drafters of the letter, claiming it was based on an improper interpretation of the Wire Wager Act.

Now, in the final chapter of this saga, Minnesota authorities have announced that no further action will be taken on the matter. All recipients of the letter of demand were issued with another letter on 4 June asking them to disregard the original letter.