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r/legaladvice•
Raidion

Worried about running afoul of aiding and abetting gambling laws with new website [US]

Hello,

I'm in NJ and working on a website that would assist certain types of gambling. I guess a close example would be an office lottery pool, but on a less than legal lottery. It's not meant to recruit people, but simply to manage what would otherwise be a manual process in a known group of people. You'd be able to log in, make your lottery selection, and see the final result. The interface would allow the "admins" of the pools to keep track of who paid (by a simple check box), what the entry fee is, and what the payouts should be, but it wouldn't facilitate any money handling of any type. The site would not be receiving any sort of % commission or kickback, but would make money from advertising.

Would this run into any trouble legally? If this would, would it be more acceptable to ban any description of entry fee or possible winnings and just limit it to # of people entered? Would it still be acceptable to have a "paid" checkbox for all the entries?

Last of all, do you know any more resources I can use to learn more about what I should and shouldn't do in situations like this? I'm just solving a problem for a couple friends and want to make that solution available for other people as well, but I don't want to do anything illegal.

Thank you

Posted Feb 16, 2016, 6:03 AM UTC · edited

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Original Post:

Author: u/Raidion

Worried about running afoul of aiding and abetting gambling laws with new website [US]

Hello,

I'm working on a website that would assist certain types of gambling. I guess a close example would be an office lottery pool, but on a less than legal lottery. It's not meant to recruit people, but simply to manage what would otherwise be a manual process in a known group of people. You'd be able to log in, make your lottery selection, and see the final result. The interface would allow the "admins" of the pools to keep track of who paid (by a simple check box), what the entry fee is, and what the payouts should be, but it wouldn't facilitate any money handling of any type. The site would not be receiving any sort of % commission or kickback, but would make money from advertising.

Would this run into any trouble legally? If this would, would it be more acceptable to ban any description of entry fee or possible winnings and just limit it to # of people entered? Would it still be acceptable to have a "paid" checkbox for all the entries?

Last of all, do you know any more resources I can use to learn more about what I should and shouldn't do in situations like this? I'm just solving a problem for a couple friends and want to make that solution available for other people as well, but I don't want to do anything illegal.

Thank you

1