The government expanded its prosecution of Internet sports gambling today by filing charges against seven owners, managers and employees of five betting companies headquartered in the Caribbean.
The action follows the first federal Internet sports betting cases that were filed against 14 people earlier this month.
The new charges filed in Manhattan federal court allege the defendants, all of whom are U.S. citizens, own or operated sports betting businesses that illegally accepted wagers on sporting events over the Internet and telephones.
All of the companies advertise and promote their sports betting operations to U.S. customers on Web sites on the Internet, the complaint alleged.
Operating Illegally
Three of the defendants owned or worked for World Sports Exchange of Antigua and Galaxy Sports of Curacao. These two companies continued to run sports betting operations in violation of federal law after the first round of charges on March 4, prosecutors alleged.
The other four defendants either owned or worked for Global Sports Network of the Dominican Republic; Grand Holiday Casino of Curacao; and World Wide Tele-sports of Antigua.
One of the defendants is Laurence Stofan, who is the owner of Global Sports Network and who operated his business out of Cliffside Park, New Jersey.
The government has said that online sports betting yielded $600 million in gross revenues last year, up from about $60 million in 1996.
In January alone, one online betting service received about 40,000 calls, apparently associated with betting on the Super Bowl, prosecutors said.
So far no bettors who have used the Internet sites have been charged, but prosecutors warn that such activity is illegal.
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UK Police stake out illicit gambling Websites
A special police unit is being formed in the UK in response to the growing number of illegal gambling Websites on the Internet.
The move by the National Intelligence Crime Squad comes as the Emerging Crime conference in London on Monday warned that organised criminals are using the Net to set up illegal virtually reality casinos.
By next year, it is estimated that gamblers will have spent around £12bn in virtual casinos by using their credit cards to place bets.
Often there is no guarantee that online games such as roulette and black jack are being played fairly on these site.
And gamblers giving their credit card details could be putting themselves at financial risk.
Criminals cash in
According to Lewis Endler, a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, there are signs that criminal organisations are cashing in on their success.
He says there is now evidence that criminals are operating illegal gambling sites which allows them to launder any proceeds.
There are now around 1,000 789bet gambling-related Websites on the Internet and numbers are doubling annually.
Some are perfectly legal and operate from the Caribbean, but it is not possible as the user to determine which sites are “safe”.
The BBC’s Crime Correspondent Stephen Cape says there have been arrests in the US and it is known that organised criminals in Russia are also involved.
The UK Gaming Board says the difficulty in stamping out online organised crime arises from the fact that the Internet can cross any border.
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