Posts Tagged ‘gambling’

December 7 roundup

  • Georgia: “Twiggs County Landgrabber Loses, Must Pay $100K in Fees” [Lowering the Bar]
  • “Major California Rule Change For Depositions Takes Place In 2013” [Cal Biz Lit] Discovery cost control explored at IAALS conference [Prawfs]
  • Gift idea! “Lego version of the Eighth Circle of Hell (where false counselors and perjurers suffered)” [John Steele, Legal Ethics Forum; Flavorwire]
  • “Don’t Worry About the Voting Rights Act: If the Supreme Court strikes down part of it, black and Hispanic voters will be just fine.” [Eric Posner and Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Slate, via @andrewmgrossman]
  • “Why did Congress hold hearings this week promoting crackpot [anti-vaccination] views? [Phil Plait, Slate]
  • “Debunking a Progressive Constitutional Myth; or, How Corporations Became People, Too” [John Fabian Witt, Balkinization]
  • “Federal ‘protection’ of American poker players turning into confiscation” [Point of Law]

CFTC: InTrade prediction market is selling options, and requires our permission

“The CFTC is suing popular betting site Intrade. And now Intrade is telling its [U.S.] customers to start shutting down their accounts.” [Business Insider, Alex Tabarrok]

The CFTC says bets on future events must be exchange-traded as a way of assuring “market integrity,” but Bryan Caplan begs to differ:

The CFTC’s real complaint is that consumers eagerly bet on Intrade because the company exemplifies market integrity: “I trust Intrade with my money because of their reputation, not government regulation.” …The only people the CFTC is “protecting” are their own obsolete employees.

Brian Doherty notes that the CFTC’s press release is “strangely devoid of any mention of anyone being victimized or defrauded.” Followup: Tabarrok.

Unshuffled decks at the mini-baccarat table

Gamblers at a mini-baccarat table at the Atlantic City Golden Nugget could scarcely believe their good fortune: the house was dealing from an unshuffled deck, making it possible to guess which cards were coming next. “Forty-one consecutive winning hands later, the 14 players had racked up more than $1.5 million in winnings — surrounded by casino security convinced they had cheated but unable to prove how.” When the truth emerged, the casino filed a lawsuit against the card manufacturer, saying the decks had wrongly been promised as pre-shuffled. Meanwhile, it is refusing to cash in the uncashed chips of the winners, on the theory that New Jersey regulations invalidate casino games that do not offer fair odds to both sides. The players’ lawyer rejects that theory and also claims the casino has shown bias toward his clients because of their Asian origin, which the casino denies. [AP/NJ.com]

September 2 roundup

  • Jury acquits ex-firefighter who claimed disability while competing as a bodybuilder [Boston Herald]
  • Authorities snatch kids from homes after parents busted with small amounts of pot [NYT, Tim Lynch/Cato]
  • “Case Study on Impact of Tort Reform in Mississippi” [Mark Behrens via Scheuerman/TortsProf]
  • When opt-in works: “More than 27,000 S. Korean users join class-action suit against Apple” [Yonhap]
  • Casino liable after customers leave kids unattended in cars? [Max Kennerly]
  • All is forgiven, says frequent investment plaintiff: “State Street Rehired by Calpers After Being Likened to ‘Thugs’” [Business Week]
  • Vintage comic book covers on law themes are a regular Friday feature at Abnormal Use.

June 22 roundup

Claim: Chuck E. Cheese kids’ games amount to gambling

“A San Diego woman has sued the company that owns the Chuck E. Cheese’s family restaurant chain, claiming that many of the games intended for children at these locations are actually illegal gambling devices — like slot machines.” [San Diego Union-Tribune, Above the Law (“Can you imagine growing up and being known as the kid whose mom sued Chuck E. Cheese?”)] For other class actions based on creative theories that something “amounts to” gambling, see this site’s reports from 1999 (Pokémon and other kids’ trading/collecting cards) and 2008 (“Deal or No Deal” TV show).