A judge of King County has disappointed a lot of poker gamblers when he supported the state’s ban against online casino gambling and poker rooms. This case might have hugely assisted online poker advocates in the fight against the ban, and lawyer Lee Rousso is eager to continue the fight all the up to the US Supreme Court if he has to.

The original Washington state amendment that came into force in 1973 prohibited the “receipt or transmission of gambling information” through telephone, radio, and telegraph. In the year 2006, they added Internet to the amendment. And if before the amendment violation was considered to be a gross misdemeanor nowadays it is a felony. Any person found guilty of gambling online might be subject to having the personal property seized.

In 2007 Rousso, the Poker Players Alliance head, filed a lawsuit hoping that this amendment would be declared unconstitutional. He stated that the law discriminated against internet interstate businesses and that the ban protected Washington State’s land-based casinos and card rooms’ profits. Rousso said that a Senator in whose district there were above mentioned casinos and card rooms sponsored the bill.

Mary Roberts, State Court Judge dismissed Ruosso’s complaint by saying that there was nothing in the law protecting the traditional casinos and card rooms interests at the cost of interstate commercial interests. She stated that she had made her decision basing on the state’s history of gambling prohibition. Ruosso replied that the law was hypocritical. Then he added, “We’re going to win this battle… someday.”