Judge Denies Request for Dismissal of Black Friday Charges

Judge Lewis Kaplan has decided against dismissing charges against bank chairman John Campos, saying that the debate over the roles of skill and chance in online poker have no bearing on whether Campos’ role as a payment processor was in violation of U.S. law.

Kaplan had long expressed doubts that there would be any real chance of the charges against Campos being dismissed outright.

“There is no summary judgment in criminal cases,” Kaplan said in his decision.

However, layers for Campos and fellow payment processor Chad Elie were hoping that they might be able to get at least some of the charges against their clients dismissed. Unfortunately for the two men, all eight charges remain.

One of the more interesting aspects to the decision – at least for online poker players – was Kaplan’s quick dismissal of the argument that poker might not be considered gambling if it could be proven that it was instead a game of skill.

That’s not to say that Kaplan rejected the idea that poker involved skill. Instead, he said only that the argument that this meant poker didn’t fit into the definition of gambling was “surprising,” and suggested that it would have been “inappropriate” for him to dismiss counts on the basis of such an argument due to the “lack of proof at this point in time.”

Another argument rejected by Kaplan was that Campos and Elie were only payment providers, and thus did nothing illegal. Kaplan said that they and other payment processors could still be prosecuted if they knew that they were processing funds related to illegal online wagering.

Both Campos and Elie are expected to see their cases go to trial in March. It has been close to a year now since the Black Friday indictments of April 15, 2011, when the U.S. government issued indictments against 11 different individuals involved with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, as well as several payment processors. The indictments were based on charges stemming from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which was passed in 2006.