"Billion Dollar Charlie" Protests Anti-Gambling Law

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog.

Charles Nesson, the eccentric Harvard Law prof immortalized as Billion Dollar Charlie in Jonathan Harr's 1996 book "A Civil Action," is up to some new tricks. Yesterday, he reportedly led a rally at the Massachusetts State House to protest provisions of a pending resort casino bill that would criminalize poker.

According to the NLJ, the controversy concerns whether the addition of three Massachusetts casinos would generate enough jobs to outweigh the social costs of the gambling. Nesson (pictured), who founded the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society at Harvard, timed his rally to precede a hearing about the bill held by the joint committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies. (In October, we blogged about Nesson's crusade, along with Harvard colleague Alan Dershowitz, to legalize online poker.)

In a statement, Nesson said that Governor Deval Patrick owes state residents "an explanation" for the bill's anti-poker provisions, which call for a fine of up to $25,000 or a two year jail term for online poker players, even when games have no money at stake. "I don't think filling our expensive jail cells with poker players is what Massachusetts voters had in mind when they elected Deval Patrick," Nesson said.

Kofi Jones, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development, said the Patrick administration looks forward to having a debate on the provision in question and other provisions on the House floor. "[That] is where we believe debate on this legislation belongs," she said.