Gaming Counsel

Non-Binding Legal Correspondent

TORONTO, CA - Stuart Hoegner is Managing Director of Gaming Counsel, PC. An expert in international gaming law, mergers and acquisitions, and taxation, his day job entails advising owners of internet poker brands, professional poker players, and operators of online skill games, casinos, auction sites, bookmakers, and media operations.

A member of the International Masters of Gaming Law, Stu began writing for Pokerati and otherwise being free and easy with opinions in 2010. In his spare time he enjoys playing golf, reading books about history and grammar, and shooting craps.

Posts by Gaming Counsel:

• Canadian Senate Reports on Digital Currencies

  18 Jun 2015

  Lately, when many Canadians think of the Senate — our unelected upper house of Parliament — they think of the Senate expense scandal (or possibly other scandals) which may be an issue in the general election this fall. That’s unfortunate, as today the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce released its report on Digital Currency. […]

• OLG smackdown

  24 May 2014

  In April of this year, Ontario’s Auditor General, Bonnie Lysyk, released her report on the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s Modernization Plan. The report was prepared and made public in response to motions passed by the legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The report is a sobering read for OLG, for the government, and for […]

• How Canada will regulate bitcoin

  29 Mar 2014

  This past week, two sources of information became available indicating how the Canadian government will increase its regulation and oversight of virtual currencies, including bitcoin. Through a combination of legislative and regulatory changes, Parliament and the Financial Reports Analysis Centre of Canada—Canada’s financial intelligence unit—will wrap “dealers” in virtual currencies into the current money services […]

• New Ontario class action against Mt Gox

  24 Mar 2014

  On March 14th, lawyers for four plaintiffs filed suit in Toronto against Mt Gox, the bitcoin exchange embroiled in ongoing scandal. Defendants include several corporations in the Mt Gox Group of companies and Mark Karpeles, a majority shareholder in those companies and Mt Gox’s CEO. The notice of action for the lawsuit is here. Among […]

• Canada increasing its bitcoin oversight

  27 Feb 2014

  The Canadian finance minister, Jim Flaherty, presented the federal government’s 2014 budget plan to Parliament on February 11th. Cryptocurrencies played a small part in the budget, though still an important one for Canadian businesses in the sector. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are addressed under the heading “Strengthening Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Regime.” The relevant […]

• FinTRAC continues bitcoin review

  13 Feb 2014

  On February 11th, David George-Cosh broke the story of the release of an undated internal document produced by FinTRAC addressing the challenges of cryptocurrencies, primarily bitcoin. FinTRAC is Canada’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing watchdog. The document is a slide deck that was produced further to an Access to Information Act request. The WSJ blog post on […]

• Bitcoin sails on

  27 Jan 2014

  Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, today announced the unsealing of a federal criminal complaint against Robert Faiella and Charlie Shrem. It’s alleged that Faiella ran an underground bitcoin exchange on Silk Road. Shrem is well-known in the bitcoin community as the CEO of BitInstant and the Vice Chairman of […]

• Loto-Québec passes muster

  11 Nov 2013

  In an interesting decision out of Montreal, the Quebec Superior Court very recently found in favour of Loto-Québec in a claim against it by two Quebec residents. A copy of the judgment is here. The plaintiffs alleged that certain limited outputs of the algorithm used to generate lottery selections in Quebec’s ‘Extra’ lottery add-on product […]

• Canada will tax your bitcoins

  07 Nov 2013

  The Canada Revenue Agency (the Canadian equivalent of the IRS) just issued its first release on how it will treat virtual currencies for taxation purposes. There is not much new here — the CRA sent an e-mail to the CBC back in April about bitcoin taxation — and the government leaves several questions unanswered. Still, it’s an […]

• Criminal, Civil Complaints against Silk Road Mastermind

  04 Oct 2013

  Journalist Brian Krebs broke the news on Oct. 2 that US federal authorities shut down Silk Road, the most famous, or infamous, Tor network online contraband bazaar. Pursuant to a criminal complaint and related civil complaint and protective order, Ross William Ulbricht (a.k.a. Dread Pirate Roberts) was arrested in San Francisco as the FBI seized the Silk […]