SportingBet, Government Settle over U.S. Gambling Law Violations

Posted: September 22, 2010

Updated: October 4, 2017

It’s yet another settlement win for the U.S. government as yet another online sportsbook seeks to avoid an even costlier courtroom showdown

It’s yet another settlement win for the U.S. government as yet another online sportsbook seeks to avoid an even costlier courtroom showdown over possible violation of American gambling laws.

After four years of negotiation, U.K.-based Sporting Bet has agreed to pay government authorities $33 million for soliciting customers to its online sportsbook in the USA. The U.S. Justice Department made the announcement of the settlement, which was based on the accusation that “Sportingbet had offered sports betting, wagering on poker and casino games from 1998 until October 2006, hiding the transactions to credit card companies that had disallowed their cards to be used for Internet gambling.”

In fact, in late 2006 Sportingbet PLC’s then CEO Peter Dicks was arrested in Louisiana but was subsequently released without being formally charged.

Sporting Bet joins a list of companies involved with Internet poker, sportsbooks or online casinos in the United States which have agreed to pay up rather than risk prosecution, and that $33 million may have been a small price to pay, relatively. PartyGaming and its founder Anarag Dikshit have ponied up a combined $405 million since 2008 in settlements with the U.S. federal government, while payment processors NETeller settled for $136 million in 2007.