U.S. Arrests Online Gambling Company Chairman

imaginaryelf writes "Reuters reports that U.S. authorities have arrested Peter Dicks, the chairman of U.K. based online sports betting company Sportingbet Plc, while he was passing through Dallas. Just two months ago, the CEO of another U.K. based online sports betting company, BetOnSports, was arrested on U.S. soil as well. They are both charged with violating the 1961 Federal Wire Act, which can be broadly interpreted as declaring all forms of online gambling illegal in the U.S. Is online gambling the Alcohol Prohibition of the 21st century?"

Comments

Re:I dont see the logic in this

[Dachannien]

WHEREAS ALL they NEED to do and HAD to do is to bar all access from u.s. to that u.k. site

If the US government did that, then you'd be complaining about censorship.

The problem is that this guy and his company accepted money from US citizens who were on US soil in exchange for providing a service that is illegal in the US. It would be trivial for him to refuse credit card transactions for cards where the address on record is in the US, and at least then he'd have plausible deniability. Of course, doing so destroys most of his market, so it's easy to see why he wouldn't do that.

Like driving on the left hand side of the road?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It is nuts to arrest somebody for a "crime" committed elsewhere (where it is not a crime). For example, in many parts of the world civilians are not permitted to own or carry handguns. Should somebody be arrested on landing in the UK because they happened to own/carry a handgun while in the US?

This is either harrassment or just the US thinking it has rights to push the rest of the world around.

Re:I dont see the logic in this

[mabhatter654]

actually, credit card companies do not allow charges to known gambling sites... there are ways around... "paypal" type things for gambling, so the actual gambling site would not have "knowladge" that the person was from the US. Also, it's not for an out of the country site to abide by US law.. that's for US citizens to do on their own. Compare this issue to downloading libCSS from off shore, downloading MP3 from AllmyMP3 in Russia, or hosting porn in a friendly state.

In the last three cases we expect the citizen to follow the law, because to restrict or monitor access would be UnAmerican. Gambling is a "vice" crime so to the law enforcement "religion" it's different. The fundamental problem is that it's easier for the govt to collar these guys illegally than it is to fix the real problem going on in the country. Also, "rightist" state legislatures and law enforcement work very hard to delay, subjorn, etc. the Will of the people to change these backwards laws. For them "Law" is the "religion" and so they should not "compromise" even if the people vote for it.

Gambling Hypocrisy

[Mr. Lwanga]

The only crime the offshore gaming companies committed is competing against US based brick and mortar casinos. If you travel out of a state that doesn't have gambling to a state that does, isn't the casino enabling an act that couldn't occur in the gambler's home state? The gaming corporations don't want more competition (they spent alot of money in California to restrict Indian Casinos) and the federal and state government don't want to lose revenue from offshore gambling.

Re:Common sense

[DJ Rubbie]

You are right on the money.

I lived in Toronto for 13 years, and I decided to go to New Zealand to visit some friends and see how the place is like for a longer term basis. Quickest way to get from Toronto, Canada to Auckland, New Zealand is probably take a flight from Toronto to LA, then from LA to Auckland. Seeing how soem of my muslim friends got treated in the US (more like his parents, who are elderly), me being "non-white", more tech savvy (I brought my computer along, I love my Shuttle box), I don't want to take the chance of having dealing with American customs and risk having my data inspected, so I took the long way, went to Hong Kong (I was born there), which was nice because I got to see my relatives and do some shopping, before leaving for Auckland a week later. My return journey will be the same, and I will never step foot in America again, even as a stop over (aside from the Anchorage technical stopover, but we never were allowed to get off the plane, which is fine with me).

Even though the whole journey is about 8 hours longer in total flight time, it's worth it for me. Cathay Pacific gets my business also because they are one of the best airlines in the world. The price was right too, my mom's travel agent was able to secure the flight I took (round trip) for only CND$2200, which is definitely unbeatable. My parents told me they recently took a flight with Air Canada from Toronto to Vancover, they said the service was appalling and the staff did not know what to do, and the food and flight was expensive (CND$800 per person). It's absolutely disgraceful that North American airlines are completely backwards and behind in terms of service (given the cost) compared to their Asian counterparts.