In what could be huge news going forward, the United States Department of Justice has issued a ruling stating that it no longer considers the Wire Act to apply to online gambling outside of sports betting. The Wall Street Journal reports that the DOJ issued this ruling in September but only announced it on Friday. This is very interesting given that ruling would come only a few months after Black Friday. What caused the DOJ to reconsider its stance on online gambling? Why five years after the passage of the UIGEA (and almost three years into the Obama Administration) and even more time before that has the Wire Act suddenly changed meaning to the DOJ? It’s hard to tell, but this could be a huge victory for online poker legalization.

For years it has been argued that the Wire Act should not apply to online poker, and if it does not this could lead to the re-emergence of the US market in online poker. It has been a long time since US players saw any reason to be optimistic, but this could be one. I am not getting my hopes up yet, but 2012 may be a new beginning. It would have been nice if this ruling came before the Full Tilt Poker meltdown and the possible loss of players funds on both Full Tilt and the Cereus Network. To read the full story, click here.