Betcha.com Ruled to be Illegal Gambling: 1

If you can take back your word on a bet, is it really a bet? That is what the Seattle Times recently tackled in an article. The reason why this question even came up was because the online entrepreneur from Seattle, Nick Jenkins thought that there was a clear answer to the question, which was no. The state of Washington busted Jenkins’ online casino, Betcha.com about two years ago. The state Gambling Commission then went on to press charges and Jenkins took the ruling all the way to the appeals court. The website he runs is not like any of the other online casinos we are familiar with. He has a patent pending for his website where players could bet on sports events and many other things that other online gambling websites simply do not have like the weather. His website was shut down upon the start of the investigation without cause by the courts.

The reason why Jenkins believes that his website is not like any other online casino or internet gambling site is that players have the right to refuse to pay if they lose a bet. For example if a player bet $50 that it was not going to rain today and by noon there was a down pour of precipitation, that player has the right to click on the website’s “I refuse to pay” button. So it is never guaranteed that anyone who wins a bet will actually receive money, so does that mean that the website is mostly harmless fun? The owner of the website, Jenkins, was really disturbed by the whole situation and the way that it was handled by the government officials of Seattle. He felt a little violated since he was treated like such a high profile criminal. He was arrested and even extradited to Louisiana.