BOS / DOJ News Updates Thur 7-20-06

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And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD>US website closure to cost £4m a day for BetonSports
By Harry Wallop
(Filed: 20/07/2006)


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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>US District Court indictment in full [pdf]


The stakes were raised in the United States' attempt to stamp down on internet gambling after the Department of Justice succeeded in closing down BetonSports' US website.
This move is likely to cost the company more than £4m a day in lost revenues but the company said it had followed its US lawyers' advice.

"It is a court order and we were told it was in our benefit to comply," said a company spokesman.
However, the row - which has been escalating ever since the British chief executive of BetonSports, David Carruthers, was arrested in Dallas on Sunday - took a fresh twist after the World Trade Organisation waded into the debate. It has agreed to investigate whether the US clampdown on internet gambling complies with international trade rules.
The WTO acted after the Caribbean state of Antigua and Barbuda, home to an increasing number of online gambling companies, claimed that the US discriminated between local and foreign operators.
BetonSports said it was vigorously appealing "as we speak" against the restraining order, which has closed down its website to all US users, who generate 90pc of the company's $1.77bn (£970m) annual turnover.
Both the sports betting and the poker and casino side of the website are closed. Some people were shocked that the poker business had been closed because one US court has ruled games of skill and chance over the internet are legal.
However, the company has so far refused to agree with other parts of the restraining order, most notably the request to refund all its customers and place a full-page advert in a US national newspaper stating it is a violation of US law to accept bets. It has emerged that Mark Blandford, the founder of Sportingbet, BetonSports' far larger rival, spent the first three days of this week in Las Vegas and had not been contacted by any US authorities.
This was viewed by analysts as further evidence that the crisis engulfing BetonSports might not spread to other companies.
Online gambling shares took a pause for breath after the turmoil of earlier this week.
Those websites that do not offer sports betting saw their shares firm up, with Partygaming's closing up 9 to 94¼ and 888's closing up 9¼ to 177¾p. However, shares in Sportingbet, which have already fallen 47pc in the last 5 days, dipped a further 1¾ to 180¼p. The company has a substantial US sports book.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/07/20/cnbet20.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/07/20/ixcitytop.html
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And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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Irresponsible Journalism About BetOnSports Causes Stock Market Chaos


July 19, 2006
Did the onlinewire.com get its wired crossed today?

Just when we thought we had heard it all with regards to the recent BetonSports juggernaut, a false news release today caused online gambling stocks to rally abroad. However, only hours later, these same stocks came crashing down.

An article today claiming that BetOnSports might be actively trading again by the end of the week if they parted with David Carruthers turned out to be false.

"Neither the company nor lawyers acting on its behalf have reached any such agreement nor are they in negotiations with any other party to these proceedings," BETonSPORTS said in a statement.

When EOG interviewed the source of this false alarm, TheOnlineWire's Roberto Castiglioni, he stated, "I have transcripts that can prove it." However, no transcripts were turned over to us or any other news source to suggest that the report was accurate or factual.

Once again, panic and fear of the unknown are sending online gambling stocks on a downward spiral. Sportingbet appears to be one of the stocks taking the worst of it lately.

BETonSPORTS also said it had temporarily suspended its sports betting services in the U.S. and certain U.S. telephone services. Its shares remain suspended from trading.

-- Ken Weitzner (The Shrink)

http://www.eog.com/news/industry-news.aspx?id=1870
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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US website closure to cost £4m a day for BetonSports

FYI:
Thats 7.4 million US$$
 

WVU

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1.77 billion / 365 days = 4,849,315 per day

that is wagers placed. How in the hell do they figure they are losing 7,400,000 per day in profits?

The exaggerated estimates always cloud the issues.
 

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""It is a court order and we were told it was in our benefit to comply," said a company spokesman."

How could it possibly be in BOS benefit to lose $7.4 million per day? And if you say they're just trying to get DC released, you're crazy if you believe that the DoJ will release him.
 

WVU

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again...using real numbers they are losing closer to 500,000 per day
 

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Mark Blandford, the founder of Sportingbet, BetonSports' far larger rival, spent the first three days of this week in Las Vegas and had not been contacted by any US authorities.
This was viewed by analysts as further evidence that the crisis engulfing BetonSports might not spread to other companies.

what do you make of this part..
 

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Just got off the phone with the account manager at BoS I asked him "are you still expecting to be up at 10:00 pm tonight"?

He replied,
Wer'e looking at 6 pm.

God I hope I'm not getting jerked here.
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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Dante;
I feel that this is still an attack on BOS and their founder...JMO
But w/ the BoDog conference cancelled...who knows anymore.
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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billhill999 said:
Just got off the phone with the account manager at BoS I asked him "are you still expecting to be up at 10:00 pm tonight"?

He replied,
Wer'e looking at 6 pm.:monsters-

Thats good new is that were to happen...but they also made a statement on Tueaday the everything is Biz as usual and look what happened..they shut down.
 

Cui servire est regnare
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How is it they were SHUT DOWN totally, then they will just pop back up like nothing happened?
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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Just wondering can anyone call them and confirm that they are to reopen the website today??
 

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Brock Landers said:
How is it they were SHUT DOWN totally, then they will just pop back up like nothing happened?

Department of Justice orders a directive to BoS "shut down your servers, like NOW"

The powers that be at BoS huddle and say "It's in our best interest if we comply with the DoJ" ergo, servers get shutdown.

That's how

And when the matter is settled today in court, and the DoJ is satisfied, the will issue a directive, OK, bring up your servers.

Simple
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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billhill999 said:
And when the matter is settled today in court, and the DoJ is satisfied, the will issue a directive, OK, bring up your servers.

I dont see that happening today unless they plan on letting David rot in jail...JMO
 

Cui servire est regnare
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These guys really were scum..

Next week's big online gambling conference in Las Vegas may turn out to be a washout as a number of individuals invited are thinking of cancelling their trip in the wake of the indictments of senior directors at BetonSports.
The annual conference, organised by Bodog.com, is a must-go event for industry executives, but the arrest of the BetonSports chief executive David Carruthers on entry to the US has made people think twice about attending.
Bodog.com's chief executive, the Canadian maverick bookie Calvin Ayre, is not shy of publicity — he recently graced the cover of Newsweek — and insisted there is nothing to worry about, but others are clearly frightened.
Mr Carruthers' arrest at Dallas airport on Sunday night, while he was changing planes on his way from London to the company's headquarters in Costa Rica, has sent shockwaves through the online gambling industry, which has hitherto been rather complacent about the threat of a US crackdown on the sector.
Along with 10 other people, he was indicted on charges connected with running an illegal betting operation. BetonSports was ordered to stop taking bets from Americans and the shares were suspended on London's Alternative Investment Market.
The $12bn (£6.6bn) online gaming industry, which makes most of its money in America, was left reeling for a second day, with London-listed shares continuing their freefall.
The indictments came hot on the heels of an antigambling bill being passed by the US House of Representatives last week. The big question is whether the move against BetonSports is the beginning of a wider clampdown on internet sports betting groups, and even poker and casino sites. Simon French, at Numis Securities, said: "Until we get some clarification from the Department of Justice whether this simply relates to BetonSports or is the start of a concerted campaign by the DoJ to go after the online sports books, markets are going to be very jittery."
While the US is the most lucrative market for online betting in the world, many of the biggest companies are listed in London and are based offshore to avoid prosecution. Under the 1961 Wire Act, online and telephone sports betting are illegal in the US but it does not extend to casino and poker. Confusion has arisen because the DoJ regards all forms of internet gambling as illegal, while the US states have some control over permitting gambling so, for example, horseracing betting is allowed in a few states. David Harding, the chief executive of Britain's biggest bookmaker, William Hill, said: "It's very clear to us under the Wire Act that online sports betting is illegal but online gaming [poker and casino] is not covered by the Wire Act. We're known as a bookmaker and don't do aggressive marketing, but we don't block bets from Americans." William Hill gets less than 1 per cent of its business from the US, while Ladbrokes has been considering over the past few months whether it should enter the American market and will announce its decision next month.
Poker and casino games websites such as Party-Gaming, 888 and Empire Online, which do not cover sports betting, are thought to be less vulnerable to a crackdown than sports betting outfits such as Sportingbet, though Sportingbet also has a successful poker website, Paradise Poker. Most are trying to reduce their reliance on the American market: PartyGaming boasts that as of March, 40 per cent of new customers came from outside the US. BetonSports is seen as an easy target for the US authorities because its founder Gary Kaplan, who used the alias Greg Champion for many years, is a controversial figure. He has been charged with running illegal gambling operations since 1992 and failing to pay taxes on more than $3.3bn in bets taken. The US indictment alleges that Mr Kaplan and his new business partner Norman Steinberg took bets from undercover agents in St Louis who used pseudonyms to open betting accounts.
A DoJ spokesman said: "This is not a new policy. The Department of Justice has said consistently for years — and has testified to Congress — that internet gambling is illegal and that any businesses which engage in it are doing so at their own risk. It is entirely possible that there are other investigations ongoing. We are not able to prosecute every single instance, but we will when we have the evidence and an ability to prove it in court, and when we feel it is an appropriate time to charge."
Many in the industry sought to downplay the threat to other operators, insisting the action was targeted at BetonSports specifically and that online poker and casino are legal under current legislation. But sports betting companies appear vulnerable.
BetonSports and Mr Kaplan came under investigation in Missouri after a tip-off from a Western Union money transfer office in the state, which suspected wired funds were being used for online gambling. The case was pursued by the local office of the DoJ and the FBI, and will eventually be tried in St Louis. The indictment against the 11 individuals and four companies was handed down by a federal grand jury.
BetonSports has courted controversy before. Two years ago it bought the rights to the domain name gamcare.co.uk and gam-care.com and redirected people accessing these addresses — who thought they were logging on to Gam-care, the support charity for problem gamblers — to one of BetonSports' own websites. (The real address for Gamcare was gamcare.org.uk.) When charity officials found out, the company blamed an overenthusiastic junior marketing executive.
While online gambling companies operate in a legally grey area in the US, no executive director of a UK company has been arrested before. There has been only one previous case of someone being tried and jailed in the US for running an illegal internet gaming business. Six years ago, Jay Cohen, the American former president of the World Sports Exchange, spent 20 months in prison for running an online and telephone sports betting operation from Antigua. One theory in Washington was that the DoJ has been stung into taking a tougher line against individuals because of the high-profile campaign for new legislation to prevent internet gambling. Last week, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would update existing laws to explicitly outlaw bets taken over the internet. It would also make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.
The Republican congressman Bob Goodlatte, who sponsored the bill, said he welcomed the arrest of Mr Carruthers. "We are very encouraged the Justice Department is taking the signal that Congress is very serious about this problem." But experts think that like other previous antigambling bills, the measure will fail to clear the Senate. Mr Carruthers said in May: "In my view, if there is an unexpected accident everyone goes down with the ship, not just sports betting. There is no difference, in terms of the technicalities, in the minds of people who don't want online gambling if your are playing cards or betting on a game."
 

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BetonSports and Mr Kaplan came under investigation in Missouri after a tip-off from a Western Union money transfer office in the state, which suspected wired funds were being used for online gambling. The case was pursued by the local office of the DoJ and the FBI, and will eventually be tried in St Louis.
:monsters-

Where did you get this article??
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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So Wester Union tipped off the DOJ??
 

And if the Road Warrior says it, it must be true..
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It makes you wonder how much info Western Union shares w/ the DOJ.. I was flagged last year for excessive paymets to me then it went away and I can still use Western Union
 

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