BetOnSports to shut down U.S. operations
By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
11/09/2006
BetOnSports, once one of the top worldwide Internet gambling companies taking in more than $1 billion per year in bets from U.S. gamblers, agreed this morning to permanently shut down its U.S. operations, including phone lines and Web sites, refund the money still in customer accounts and cooperate with government investigators.
The company did not admit or deny the charges, but federal prosecutors said BetOnSports accepted bets over the phone and online even though they knew it was illegal. They also lied to customers when they said gambling with BetOnSports was legal.
BetOnSports and associated companies took in $4.6 billion in bets from 2002 to February 2005. In their most recent annual report, the company boasted gamblers placed 2.1 million bets over the phone, at an average bet of $201, and 7 million bets online at an average bet of $72. Gamblers’ money flowed in through wire transfers, check and credit card over 71 toll-free telephone numbers and dozens of Web sites.
As part of the order signed by U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson in federal court in St. Louis, the company will have to set up toll-free telephone numbers to tell customers how to get a refund and place prominent warnings to consumers on their Web sites that online gambling is illegal in the U.S. Advertisement
Within seven days, the company must also give federal investigators a list of their financial assets and company records.
After BetOnSports then-CEO David Carruthers was arrested in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport in July on the way to his home in Costa Rica, civil and criminal charges were revealed against the company, its employees and associated companies and employees.
After a court hearing earlier this week, Jeffrey Demerath, a BetOnSports lawyer, said the company was trying to work out the criminal charges