In addition, with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, payment processors such as PayPal, Venmo or LeagueSafe may find themselves at risk under federal gambling laws simply by accepting funds from Super Bowl squares pools. Meanwhile, under the Department of Justice's recent and more aggressive interpretation, some might argue that any Super Bowl squares pool that uses a payment processor such as PayPal, Venmo or LeagueSafe could find itself in legal peril. Under federal law, the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 prohibits individuals from “engaging in the business of betting or wagering a wire communication for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce.” Any Super Bowl squares pool that is conducted across state lines and includes at least one state in which the underlying activity is illegal would clearly violate the Wire Act. Thus, because a Super Bowl squares pool includes an entry fee and a prize, as a technical matter it is probably illegal.īeyond the legal risks under state law, the risks of Super Bowl squares pools under federal law may be even greater. Because Super Bowl squares pools involve randomly assigned numbers rather than numbers chosen by the contest entrants, these pools are certainly games of chance. In most states, a contest such as a Super Bowl squares pool (or boxes pool) would be deemed to constitute an illegal lottery if it involved three elements: consideration (generally an entry fee), prize and chance. Among them, they divert funds from state-sanctioned public lotteries. And private lotteries are a big no-no under both federal and state law for a number of reasons. These contests, albeit fun, in essence constitute private lotteries. At the end of the Super Bowl, the entrant whose name is listed in the box that matches with the final digits of the final scores for both the NFC and AFC teams wins a prize-generally cash. After all 100 boxes are purchased, the horizontal and vertical axes of the matrix are given a random number from 0 to 9, with one axis representing the last digit of the AFC team’s final score, and the other representing the last digit of the NFC team’s score. Super Bowl squares pools are contests that allow fans watching the Super Bowl to purchase one of 100 boxes from a 10 x 10 matrix.
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