International Game Technology PLC has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking a declaration that it will never be prosecuted under the 1961 federal Wire Act for operations related to its internet lottery sales.
IGT is seeking clarification of the law, created by U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to battle mob-controlled sportsbooks, as it applies to sales of lottery tickets over the internet.
In a 2012 opinion after a request by the Illinois Lottery, the DOJ stated the Wire Act applied only to sport betting. That opinion cleared the way for the creation of the internet gaming business. In 2018, the agency under President Donald Trump reversed that opinion to stat that the act applies to all online gaming across state lines.
Critics claimed this move was to placate the late Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson, a Trump supporter and top Republican donor who was opposed to online gaming.
The New Hampshire Lottery sued the DOJ, arguing the reversal would “extend criminal liability” to its operations, while “intruding on the sovereign interests of the state of New Hampshire without unmistakably clear language that Congress intended such as result. Such a construction of the statute is not faithful to the text, structure, purpose, or legislative history of the text.”
A district court ruled for the lottery, holding it is exempt from the opinion.
The court ordered the new DOJ interpretation to be set aside. The DOJ appealed, and the higher court again ruled New Hampshire exempt but vacated the order for the opinion to be set aside.
IGT is suing to head off any future interpretation of the act that could affect its lottery business.
“IGT’s entire non–lottery gaming business is subject to prosecution, and DOJ has offered only the promise of a 90–day heads up before it can subject IGT’s lottery business to the Wire Act as well,” the company said in the lawsuit, which calls on the courts to remove all remaining ambiguity from the law.