Minnesota to Residents: No Gambling Websites Allowed

The state of Minnesota has apparently decided to align themselves with bastions of freedom such as China, North Korea and Iran by attempting to control what internet their citizens can and cannot view. That’s the word from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, which announced today that they had sent letters to 11 ISPs asking them to block access to some 200 gambling websites.

The list of websites had not been made public at the time of this article.

On face, it seems like little more than a scare tactic designed to convince citizens to cease participation in an act that no Minnesota law (to our knowledge) bans - playing poker online. “We are putting site operators and Minnesota online gamblers on notice and in advance,” says John Willems, director of AGED. “Disruption of these sites’ cash flow will negatively impact their business models. State residents with online escrow accounts should be aware that access to their accounts may be jeopardized and their funds in peril.”

Oddly, Willems goes on to cite individual rights (huh?) as a justification for the move by the State: “In broader context, the long-running debate on online gambling continues to raise significant issues, including absence of policy and regulation, individual rights, societal impact, international fair-trade practices, and funding for criminal and terrorist organizations.”

Matt Werden, the Minnesota state director of the Poker Player’s Alliance, had this to say about the maneuver: ““This isn’t simply a heavy-handed tactic by the government; this is a clear misrepresentation of federal law, as well as Minnesota law, used in an unprecedented way to try and censor the Internet. I don’t know what U.S. Code they’re reading, but it is not illegal to play this great American pastime online, and we’re calling their bluff.”

Werden continued: “The fact is, online poker is not illegal, it’s not criminal, and it cannot be forcibly blocked by a state authority looking to score some political points. What are they going to do when this fails, ban poker books and burn our players at the stake?”