November 29, 2012 – Temple Law student Steven Silver ’13 has been selected to receive the 2012 Shannon Bybee Scholarship Award from the International Association of Gaming Advisors (IAGA) for his paper, “The Curious Case of Convenience Casinos.” Silver, who worked before law school as a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun, wrote the article to examine how courts and legislatures in various states have addressed the hidden industry of Internet sweepstakes cafés, which operate in a gray area between unlawful gambling and legitimate business promotions.
“With 3,000 to 5,000 convenience casinos in the U.S. representing a $10-15 billion industry, the stakes are high,” explains Silver in his abstract. “Does a state regulate the sweepstakes cafes and allow them to compete with traditional bricks-and-mortar casinos or does it craft new gaming statutes to ban the sweepstakes?” Silver explores the growing thicket of conflicting court opinions before proposing a free market approach to legalizing and regulating the highly profitable industry.
Silver was advised by Professor Ed Ellers, an authority on gaming law. “Steve has done an outstanding job identifying and addressing the legal and other issues in play with respect to convenience casinos,” remarked Ellers. “This is a cutting edge issue in gaming law, and Steve has advanced a thoughtful proposal for its resolution.”
The IAGA committee responsible for judging submissions to the competition found Silver’s paper to be of “outstanding merit.” The version of the paper submitted for the competition will be published online at http://www.theiaga.org/web/guest/scholarship, and the full length version will be published in January by the John Marshall Journal of Computer and Information Law.