Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson‘s crusade against online poker and internet gambling continued this week. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that Adelson’s Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling was “distributing a letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that warns internet wagering can be used by criminals to conduct money-laundering activities.” Adelson is pictured.

The letter in question was penned last September and comes from Deputy Assistant Director for the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division J. Britt Johnson. The article explained that Johnson “wrote that online casinos ‘are vulnerable to a wide array of criminal schemes.’ Johnson cited a few examples, including ways online players could launder money through internet poker games.”

One member of Adelson’s Coalition, former New York Governor George Pataki, commented in a press release from the group, “The FBI has said definitively that sophisticated technologies can be employed by terrorist groups and criminal organizations to move money undetected, conceal their physical locations, and entangle unwitting online players. The FBI’s warning is part of a growing body of evidence that demonstrates how dangerous the expansion of internet gambling will be.”

Pataki added, “Congress needs to do the responsible thing to protect American families and the innocent bystanders caught up in criminal schemes online. It must restore the longstanding Federal ban on all forms of internet gambling.” In 2011, the Department of Justice determined that the Wire Act only outlawed online wagering on sports, ushering in an era of legalized and regulated online poker and casino games in the US.

The FBI’s letter warned, “Online gambling may provide more opportunities for criminals to launder illicit proceeds with increased anonymity. Individuals may use a wide array of mechanisms to conceal their physical location, or give the appearance of operating in a different jurisdiction, when accessing a website.” Read the full letter.

Recently, it was revealed that Adelson’s Coalition had been circulating a draft billthat would clarify the Wire Act to make it applicable to games of skill and games of chance over the internet. If successful, the Coalition could succeed in effectively outlawing online poker in the US. The Sands CEO has previously stated that he’ll spend “whatever it takes” to amend the Wire Act.

Sands casinos include the Venetian and Palazzo in Las Vegas and Sands Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. Posters on Facebook have been regularly calling for a boycott of each establishment, although no formal action has been organized.

We’ll keep you abreast of the latest poker legislation news right here on PocketFives.

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