What is the Wire Act?

The 1961 Wire Act prohibited the use of interstate telephone transmissions to facilitate betting. In September 2011, the US Department of Justice released a formal legal opinion on the scope of the Act. The 2011 opinion concluded "interstate transmissions of wire communications that do not relate to a 'sporting event or contest' fall outside the reach of the Wire Act." But a new Department of Justice opinion dated November 2, 2018 reversed the 2011 opinion. It said that the Wire Act’s prohibitions are “not uniformly limited to gambling on sporting events or contests.” According to research group Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, Should this matter move through the court system, questions to be addressed include: Does the Wire Act apply to sports betting only, or all types of gambling? Is an online bet placed and received within a single state an interstate bet, since data may have been routed through other states? Does the Wire Act apply to legal online gambling? The uncertainty around the opinion creates meaningful short and long-term risks for the gaming industry, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming said.