4 ms·
"What other purpose could gambling software be used for?" Not all gambling is illegal. New York State itself has a gambling operation, it is called the lotter
by betterunix 14y ago
"What other purpose could gambling software be used for?"
Not all gambling is illegal. New York State itself has a gambling operation, it is called the lottery and it serves as a way to extract money from poor people. There are casinos in New York State, on reservations.
"It's irrelevant whether it was sold to overseas countries since, given the nature of the internet, New Yorkers would have access to those sites."
That is a slippery slope. Hacker News does not censor its comments; that would make HN illegal in China. Do you really want to say that one jurisdiction's laws should apply elsewhere, just because of the Internet?
The Internet is a communication system. If New Yorkers cannot gamble in a country where it is legal by communicating their bets over the Internet, New York is engaged in censorship; arresting someone who wrote software that was used by New Yorkers who ignored that censorship is something I would have expected from China or Iran.
- rprasad 14y agoBasic misunderstanding of international law on your part. A "service", website, or software program is considered to take place where the user is located, not where the website is located. This standard was set decades ago (in relation to services) and extends quite well to websites. Thus, the gambling in your example would be treated by international law as occuring in NY. Moreover, by choosing to do business with NY residents (unless such business is minor or incidental), the gambling websites would be subjecting themselves to the jurisdiction of NY for criminal law purposes).
- hef19898 14y agoComletely agree. Following this logic, the internet and all web services could be regulated using the most most severe laws on this planet due to the global nature of the internet. What this shows is, at least for me, frightening trend to ignore the souverenity of foreign states when you consider them less powerfull than yourself. Germany is doing it with Switzerland for example too.