Online Casino News and Information

Telegraph.co.uk
By David Litterick in Fort Worth and Harry Wallop
(Filed: 22/07/2006)

David Carruthers faces the prospect of a four-day bus trip in sweltering temperatures across the southern United States after waiving his right to a bail hearing in Fort Worth.

After being arrested at Dallas airport on Sunday, the chief executive of BetonSports will now be transported by marshals from the federal jail in Forth Worth to a holding centre in Oklahoma City. From there he will be taken to a prison in St Louis, Missouri.

David Carruthers
David Carruthers: bearing up ‘very well, under the circumstances’

He appeared at a scheduled hearing in Forth Worth courthouse yesterday, wearing a short-sleeved orange jump suit over a white T-shirt, handcuffed, and shackled at the ankles.

Sources close to his defence team said the businessman, who has been an outspoken critic of US gambling laws, was bearing up “very well, under the circumstances”. He intended to plead not guilty to the charges against him.

After a session lasting less than five minutes his lawyer, Tim Evans, said the bail hearing would now be held when Mr Carruthers arrives in St Louis. “Late yesterday afternoon, we determined it would be in Mr Carruthers’ best interests to waive our right to a detention hearing here,” Mr Evans said.

READ MORE - READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT Telegraph.co.uk
(more…)

REUTERS
Small Business News
Thu Jul 20, 2006 2:49pm

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - A bill to ban Internet gambling faces opposition in the U.S. Senate, but backers still hope to win passage of it within a few weeks, a top aide to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Thursday.

“We are trying to get something done before the August recess,” set to begin on Aug. 4, said Eric Ueland, Frist’s chief of staff.

Earlier on Thursday, another Frist aide said lawmakers were still working on the bill, but would not be able to vote on it before the Senate heads off for its month-long vacation.

Ueland rejected that characterization, saying Frist had not given up on getting a vote before the August recess.

Backers of the legislation have hoped to push it through the Senate this month following the arrest in the United States of David Carruthers, the chief executive of BETonSPORTS Plc (BSS.L: Quote, Profile, Research), on charges of racketeering and conspiracy.

Carruthers is scheduled to appear at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday to determine if he must remain in jail until his trial.

The Senate bill is virtually identical to legislation overwhelmingly approved earlier in July by the U.S. House of Representatives. It would prohibit most forms of Internet gambling and make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.

The Republican-backed bill has been criticized by some as an election-year appeal to the party’s conservative base.

Supporters of a crackdown on Internet gambling say legislation is needed to clarify that a 1961 federal law banning sports betting also covers an array of online gambling.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 20, 2006

GENEVA, July 19 (AP) — The World Trade Organization set up a panel on Wednesday to investigate whether United States restrictions on Internet gambling comply with international trade rules.

The Caribbean country of Antigua and Barbuda asked the W.T.O. to set up the panel after consultations with the United States failed to yield a solution to a dispute over whether Washington should drop prohibitions on Americans placing bets in online casinos.

A previous W.T.O. ruling said that some United States laws were in line with international commerce rules, but others were not. “The United States has been busy passing legislation that is directly and unequivocally contrary to the ruling,” Antigua told a meeting of the W.T.O.’s dispute settlement body.

The nation contends that the United States has taken no measures to comply with the recommendations and rulings of the dispute settlement body, Antigua said.

The decision came two days after federal authorities charged a Web gambling business based in London and licensed in Antigua, BetOnSports, with racketeering and wire fraud.

BetOnSports shut down its Web site late Tuesday and said it was temporarily stopping all transactions while it reviewed the situation.

The United States contends that Internet gambling should be prohibited …

MORE - Read the Complete Article at The New York Times

USA TODAY
OPINION
Michael Bolcerek
President, Poker Players Alliance

As USA TODAY properly noted in its editorial on Internet gambling, prohibitions don’t work (”How to counter online bets,” Editorial, Monday).

Legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that seeks to ban online poker and other forms of Internet gambling, while making exceptions for horse racing and online lotteries, will not effectively deter youth gambling or prevent compulsive gambling. In fact, such an approach would only exacerbate these problems.

Whether Americans deem 18 or 21 as the appropriate age to gamble varies from state to state, making federal licensing and industry regulation in the USA the only way to enforce a single standard. Technologies to enforce age compliance are commercially viable, and they’re capable of restricting poker on the Internet to the appropriate age.

In addition, taxing online poker can raise significant revenue. An economic analysis commissioned by our organization revealed that if the government were to regulate and tax the Internet poker industry, it has the potential to raise more than $3.3 billion in annual revenue for the federal government and $1 billion more for state coffers. Some of this money could be wisely spent on public education about the dangers of youth gambling and programs to treat problem gamblers.

No matter how you feel about Internet gambling, or the appropriate age for gambling, the most reasonable way to address concerns is through regulation, not prohibition.

Michael Bolcerek, president
Poker Players Alliance
San Francisco

USATODAY.com 7/19/2006

British citizens are angered by the US and it’s apparent targeting of British citizens and businss executives. The use of (or mis-use) a treaty originally intended to aid in the prosecution of terrorists is the tool being used to persue and prosecute british citizens in the sports betting arena. In fact, reports indicate that this treaty has been used for extradition over 20 times by the US and only one of those was terrorist related.

There has been some discussion on whether accounting details for BetonSports will be handed over to the US DOJ and just who will be doing the refunding of accounts. All things considered, customers of BetonSports shouldn’t have any worries along those lines since records were not requested. The request is for BetonSports to refund money to their clients, not to hand over the records and the US refund from BoS funds.

Email from Calvin Ayre:

The Bodog.com Marketing Conference presents a wonderful opportunity for good discussion about marketing, customer service and about the growth of our industry; however, in the last few days, many of you who planned to attend the conference have expressed a high level of concern over the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. government’s recent actions against one of the companies in our industry. It is in light of these concerns that we have decided to postpone the Bodog.com Marketing Conference to a later date and at an international location. This decision ensures that the focus of the conference will not be lost.

The scheduled Party, however, will go on as planned at Tao at the Venetian on Tuesday, July 25th at 9 p.m. If you plan on attending the party, please RSVP: rsvp@bodog.com.

Each of you will be fully refunded for your conference registration and sponsorship fees, and we will be in contact with you shortly about this postponement. If you need to reach us immediately about your reservations at the Wynn, call us toll-free at 1-866-591-0217. If you are an affiliate or an advertiser, please contact your local account manager.

I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you, but in spite of what has happened of late we chose to act with your best interests in mind. I assure you that we will make it up to you with a bigger and better conference to be announced in the near future.

Bodog.com will carry on our business as usual and will continue to lead the way in digital entertainment.

-Calvin Ayre, Founder and CEO of Bodog.com

internetnews.com
By Roy Mark
July 19, 2006

A week ago, David Carruthers, the urbane, 49-year-old British CEO of BetonSports PLC, was campaigning to legalize, regulate and tax Internet gambling in the United States.

Today, he is sitting in a Fort Worth jail cell.

As CEO of BetonSports, Carruthers oversees an online gambling empire with licensed operations in Europe and the Caribbean basin. The company has offices/online casinos in London, Costa Rica, Antigua, Guatemala, Mexico and Malaysia.

Today he’s having bologna sandwiches and Kool-Aid in a Texas lockup. Perhaps the U.S. government will throw in a heaping side of American hypocrisy.

According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), BetonSports in 2003 had 100,000 active players who placed 33 million wagers worth $1.6 billion through the company’s Web sites.

More than half of those wagers came from Americans.

Because of that, Carruthers is in the slammer facing enough charges to make a mob boss nervous, including racketeering, conspiracy and fraud.

“Efforts to prohibit online gambling in the United States have failed repeatedly,” Carruthers said last week. “Congress should focus its energy and resources on viable solutions through regulation to protect consumers and to control underage and problem gambling.”

Carruthers’ comments came within hours of the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelming vote to do just the opposite: ban Internet gambling in the U.S.

That legislation seeks to clarify a murky piece of law called the Wire Act, which Congress approved in the early 1960s prohibiting placing a sports wager over the telephone.

The new House legislation extends the Wire Act to cover all forms of Internet gambling.

It is not, it is important to note, law. The Senate has yet to decide …..

MORE - READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT internetnews.com

Wow! Michael A won an amazing $205,625 at Golden Reef Casino playing Mad Hatter!! Mad Hatter is one of the new Microgaming game releases last month and has quickly become a favorite with slots players everywhere! Congratulations Michael A!

USA TODAY
Updated 7/19/2006 1:51 AM ET
By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY

When the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill cracking down on Internet gambling last week, David Carruthers, CEO of online gaming company Bet On Sports, was one of the most outspoken critics of the proposed law. The 49-year-old British executive has more immediate problems to worry about. Federal agents arrested Carruthers on Sunday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as he made his way from the company’s offices in London to Costa Rica.

As part of a wide-ranging probe of what the American Gaming Association says is a $12 billion online gambling industry, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway unsealed a 22-count indictment charging racketeering, conspiracy and fraud against Carruthers, 10 others and four companies Monday. A warrant was sworn out for the arrest of 47-year-old company founder Gary Kaplan. U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry also approved the government’s request to bar Bet On Sports from accepting bets from this country and forcing it to refund money to U.S. account holders. The FBI has ordered four phone companies to shut off service to the company.

The arrest of Carruthers, a longtime British racing industry executive who joined Bet On Sports in 2000, is setting off alarm bells in Europe and the Caribbean, where the offshore casino industry is based. Bet On Sports asked for its stock to be suspended on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Shares of British gaming stocks, such as industry leader Party Gaming, fell Tuesday in heavy trading, wiping out more than $1 billion in value.

“The No. 1 topic at every board meeting today is ‘Am I next?’ ” says Internet gambling attorney Lawrence Walters. “There’s a high degree of concern …

MORE - READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE AT USA TODAY