Minnesota Attempts to Ban Online Gambling

To include online poker, by trying to block IP address which means Internet Service Providers in Minnesota will prevent websites from being viewed. However, Minnesota State officials abandoned their attempt to try to stop Minnesota residents from playing Internet poker and gambling.

Minnesota Law Enforcement Officials backed away from a federal lawsuit Monday they requested that Internet Service Providers block access to hundreds of online poker and gambling sites.

John Willems of the Minnesota Dept of Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division wrote a letter stating that it might be more effective to create a clear and effective government policy concerning regulation of gambling.

Mr. Willems of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Alcohol and Gambling Enforcement Division wrote in a letter that he believed it might be more appropriate to resolve this problem by working to create clear and effective government policy concerning regulation of gambling.

Minnesota has accepted that all Internet gambling conducted in the state is illegal, even if the servers that host the games are overseas. Most of the Gaming operators are located in Europe and the Caribbean. But the only known countries that block Gambling IP address are China and North Korea.

Willems section gave written notices last April, to block Gambling IP adresses, to AT&T Internet Services, Com Cast Cable, Charter Communications, DishNetwork, DirectTV, Embarq, Sprint, Nextel, Frontier Communications, Qwest, Verizon and Wildblue Communications.

In a quick rebuttal to the ignorance of Mr Willems, who feels his agency can single handedly send out notices to all the ISP in Minnesota, Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) filed suit in a federal court in Minneapolis. As a result, The Minnesota Law Enforcement Agency has pulled their request from the Internet Service Providers.

It is clearly a victory for Internet rights and for Truth, Justice, and the American way. Just because some Local Law Enforcement Agencies want to start blocking websites that they feel is unsuitable and against their local laws, does not give them the right to dictate what websites citizens in their area can view. This is what the right to FREE SPEECH is all about and Minnesota law enforcement has clearly overstepped their boundaries.