Place Your Bets: Will Jesse Ventura Go To Jail Due To His Latest Gig?

Jesse the Body (read Reason interview here) and E! Channel utility hottie Brooke Burke are among the celebs who are now shilling for online casinos (oh for the days when Sinatra shilled for OTB). The catch? Internet gambling is still kind of illegal:

There is a big potential catch: these stars and others who profit by promoting offshore casinos could be putting themselves in legal jeopardy. The government considers these Internet sports books to be violating American law by providing unlicensed gambling on domestic shores.

Further, the government has said in the past that it could prosecute Americans who promote and assist such foreign operations for effectively aiding and abetting their illegal activities.

"There's a good chance they are criminally liable for the crime itself," said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in California and the author of "The Law of Internet Gaming." For celebrities who draw attention from law enforcement officials, he said, "the downside danger is enormous."

More here. The ultimate status of online gambling in the US remains a bit of a mystery. Reason covered the debate years ago here and here and here.

One final note: Another celebrity shill for online gaming is Jim Kelly, former QB for the old USFL Houston Gamblers (if memory serves) and best-known as a quadruple Superbowl loser with a vaunted porcelain clown collection. As someone who lived in Buffalo for the first three years they tanked in the 'bowl (granted, the first game was a real heartbreaker), I recommend to all Americans–at the risk of breaking the law and jeopardizing Reason's 501(c)(3) status–that you always bet against Jim Kelly.

And one more thing: Ventura should go to jail not for online casino shilling but for his short-lived MSNBC tv show.