One of last year’s victories for poker was muted a bit Tuesday when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York overturned a judge’s ruling that a New York man was not guilty of operating an illegal gambling business. As a result, Lawrence Dicristina is facing up to 10 years in prison.
The case, United States of America v. Lawrence Dicristina, dates back to last year. Dicristina had run an underground poker game out of a warehouse on Staten Island and was convicted by a jury of operating an illegal gambling business. Under the Illegal Gambling Business Act (IGBA) of 1970, it is illegal to operate a gambling business that both runs afoul of state laws and brings in more than $2,000 per day or is up and running for more than 30 days.
In August 2012, Judge Jack Weinstein of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York reversed the decision. The defense had argued that the IGBA was ambiguous, defining gambling as “…including, but…not limited to pool selling, bookmaking, maintaining slot machines, roulette wheels or dice tables, and conducting lotteries, policy, bolita or numbers games, or selling chances therein.”
While the poker did not need to be listed to be included as gambling, the defense argued that not only did it barely relate to the games that were listed, but that it was also a very popular game at the time and was likely omitted on purpose. Judge Weinstein said this interpretation was “plausible” and that because of the “rule of lenity,” the burden of proof is on the prosecution when it comes to ambiguity.
The defense’s second argument, and the one that got the most attention, was that poker was a game of skill and therefore Decristina was not running a gambling business. The judge agreed here, as well.
The poker community celebrated the decision at the time, but unfortunately for Dicristina, U.S. Circuit Judge Chester Straub and a three-judge panel disagreed with Judge Weinstein’s ruling Tuesday, saying that the IGBA is not ambiguous. He wrote, speaking for the panel that handed down the ruling, “Because we find no such ambiguity, we decline to limit the statute’s reach beyond its plain terms.”
Thus, with this reversal of a reversal, Dicristina will now have to appear before Judge Weinstein again for sentencing, which could be as much as 10 years in prison.
If there is a silver lining of the ruling, it is that the Court of Appeals did nothing to counter Judge Weinstein’s decision that poker is a game of skill; it only reversed the ambiguity ruling.
In a statement, the Poker Players Alliance said of the ruling:
Today’s decision by the 2nd Circuit Court, while unfortunate, only adds to the growing call for federal clarity on the definition of gambling. The 2nd Circuit clearly did not dispute the district court’s finding that poker is a game of skill. This is a key point distinguishing poker from the types of gambling games that Congress and state legislatures have often tried to prohibit. What the court did was conclude that the IGBA does not set forth an independent federal definition of gambling, but instead only incorporates state law.