He was sentenced to 21 months in jail, but he is appealing. His lawyer expects the case to wind up in the Supreme Court. There have been other convictions, but not many. In 1998, Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon got what is believed to be the first criminal conviction in the country related to Internet gambling, spokesman Scott Holste said. His site was subsequently removed from the Internet.
Critics expect serious consequences if online gambling continues unchecked in the United States.
Howard Schaeffer of the Harvard Center for Addictive Studies predicts that by the end of this decade, youth gambling will be more of a societal problem than drug use. Those and other concerns prompted Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, and Rep. Robert Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, to introduce legislation last year to specifically prohibit Internet gambling. The Internet Gambling Prohibition Act would have banned Internet gambling, with certain exemptions for state lotteries and parimutuel betting. The bill passed the Senate but fell short in the House, where it faced more intense lobbying. Legislators are expected to try again with another bill.