"Yourbet.com Online Gambling Signs License With State Of Washington To Get Its Horseracing Activity"

Across the country racetracks are continuing to experience loses of revenue in the face of the raising popularity of Internet gambling. One state however, the state of Washington, has discovered a method that can help their racetrack industry benefit from Internet gambling instead of suffering a beating from it. They have done this by granting a license to Yourbet.com of Woodland Hills, California. This license authorizes Yourbet.com to accept online bets for horse races around the country from residents of the state of Washington. Through this license the Washington State Horse Racing Commission his taken back control, at least partially, of the racetrack industry in the state. How is this, you may ask? Because in order to receive this license, Yourbet.com has agreed to pay a percentage to the Washington horse racing industry, for each wager placed over the Internet. In addition, they have agreed to pay the state of Washington the sum of $400,000 for those wagers that state officials say Yourbet.com received illegally during the prior previous year.

In actuality the estimated amount of money that Yourbet.com collected from bets from Washington state residents is estimated as being closer to twelve million dollars. This $400,000 payback does however, send an unambiguous message that Washington state is not about to tolerate or to reward, unlawful conduct. The Washington State Horse Racing Commission’s Chairmen, Barry Christenberg, when asked concerning the message being sent by the Commission’s decision, said, “By providing (Yourbet.com) with a license, we are making sure that the state of Washington is receiving the money owed to it. If we were not to give them this license, there would be no guarantee that they would stop. “ He added, “By doing this we are not avoiding their prior activities since we did include a clause that requires that they pay back moneys earlier received”.

The decision by the Commission’s to grant Yourbet.com the license was passed with a four to zero vote. One member of the commission was not present during the voting. Scott Salomon, a lawyer who represents Yourbet.com., commented that in spite of the fact that Yourbet.com believes that the state has no authority to regulate interstate Internet gambling and that the company takes the position that it has not broken any laws in its accepting Internet bets from residents of Washington state, they approached the Washington State Horse Racing Commission and applied for the license. Salomon also remarked, that any activity that Yourbet.com. may or not have been involved in was carried out with the complete knowledge of all of the members of the Commission.

It is true that Internet gambling has been established in Washington State for several years now and that other Internet sites continue to illegally receive bets.Yourbet.com is not the first online gambling concern licensed by the State of Washington. Actually it is the third one licensed by the state to receive online horse racing bets. It represents one of the three companies that have been doing the most business in the state. There are two other companies that have been also granted license and they are TVB of Hillsboro, Oregon, which has paid the state $542,000 of the $5.7 million in bets received from state residents, and XpressedBet, which is a subsidiary of Magnam Entertainment Corporation of Aurora, Ontario Canada. XpressedBet has paid the Washington State Horse Racing Commission $178,000 of the $2.4 million that he has collected last year, in bets.

Until these three companies were licensed to collect bets on horse racing events, all forms of Internet gambling were prohibited in the State of Washington. Rick Night who is the Executive Secretary of the Washington State Race Track Commission, has this to say about other unlicensed company that continue to accept wagers illegally: “If such companies exist than we will investigate this and move against these companies.” The State of Washington is one seventeen states throughout the United States that have laws in place that are designed to regulate or restrict online Internet gambling.