Changes

The intention of the Federal Wire Act was not to target the casual sports bettor. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Congressman Emanuel Celler enforced this notion during a debate regarding the Act in the House of Representatives: ''"This bill only gets after the bookmaker, the gambler who makes it his business to take bets or to lay off bets... It does not go after the causal gambler who bets $2 on a race. That type of transaction is not within the purvue of the statute"''. The Federal District Court affirmed this by asserting that Congress had no intention of including social bettors in the scope of the Wire Act. This included US bettors who wagered large amounts and operated with a particular "degree of sophistication".