My take on the BOS collapse

[The Judge]

While I was in Costa Rica last week, I had the opportunity to have dinner with the CEO of BetCRIS, Ron Sacco, Also at the table with us were two of Ron’s old bookmaking friends from other shops which for some reason were not identified. Bet on Sports had a large branch office in San Jose as well and Ron obviously knows these guys very well.

His perspective on the whole matter was extremely interesting and when I have more time I will try to relate more of the conversation. His take on the BOS situation is that basically, they got really greedy. The books under the BOS umbrella were extremely flagrant in their recruitment of “agents” within the US. These agents are local bookies within the US who paid a fee to the offshore book to host their own wagering website on the offshore’s servers. The local guy is able to control the lines posted on his personal website and gives all of his players a user name and a password. The wagers are tracked by the software and collections and payouts are done locally. For this service, the local pays the offshore a nominal charge per bettor, per week.

While virtually all offshore books are offering similar arrangements these days, BOS & Co. were very aggressively advertising this service in prominent mainstream publications. Additionally, BOS had a motor home plastered with their logo on it, follow ESPN Game Day around the country last football season in an effort to promote their online gambling sites and sign up players on the spot. The story told to me was that at on one particular weekend, two FBI agents not only signed up in the stadium parking lot but that the BOS people were stupid enough to actually accept their cash deposit and bets on the game. If that was not moronic enough, after the game, the agents came back to the motor home and were paid their winning wagers in cash!

All of this was highly frowned upon by the feds and by the congressmen that BOS CEO embarrassed in his OP-ED piece in The Hill which was published back in February. The following is an excerpt of that article:

The good news is that the United Kingdom provides a regulation model that could be adapted to the United States. The Gambling Act, passed last spring, provides for the licensing and regulating of online gambling including the establishment of a Gambling Commission to implement policies to protect consumers, restrict minor access and prevent money laundering and other criminal activity.

Yet, instead of pursuing steps toward regulation, U.S. politicians waste time and resources on futile legislative efforts to prohibit our business from doing business. Legislation to ban Internet gambling has been submitted at least seven times in Congress, and each time the effort has failed. One of the reasons is that even the sponsors of the bills cannot agree on what type of online gambling to prohibit; some are in favor or horse betting online; others support lotteries online. Clearly the issue of what to oppose is even confusing for our critics.

Later, in March of this year, Carruthers, echoed many opponents of the proposed legislation. "Trying to shut down a multibillion-dollar industry with consumer demand that includes an estimated 8 million Americans annually is an empty legislative effort,” Carruthers, CEO of BetOnSports, wrote in March 9th's Los Angeles Times.

"…This law shouldn't be applied to Internet betting. No case law or statute clearly defines where Internet bets are taking place. BetOnSports, for example, is based in Costa Rica. Our customers can place bets from anywhere that has an Internet connection. In part because of this ambiguity, no one has been prosecuted for online betting under the law."

As you can see, Caruthers was very outspoken on this subject when his peers in the business believe that he should have kept his mouth shut. One of Sacco’s comments at dinner was something to the effect of “This new breed of operators are not even Bookmakers, they are excellent marketers but don’t know shit about running a book. The damage that their greed is doing to our business is tremendous and if they don’t learn to keep their f*cking mouths shut, they will all end up behind bars.” This is coming from someone who has served time twice for bookmaking so I was paying close attention.

Carruthers was hung out to dry by BOS after he was arrested. He was immediately fired because as an officer of the company, he was being served with a variety of papers on BOS while he was locked up. BOS did nothing to help him out, not with legal representation, not with bail money, NOTHING! They wanted to distance themselves with Carruthers as fast as possible. Furthermore, the company panicked and shut down their operation when the smart thing to do would have been to keep on with a “business as usual” approach. There would have been absolutely nothing that the DOJ could have done but to file more indictments against people who were safely untouchable in Costa Rica and the UK where their operations were not only legal but licensed by those governments.

I will get around to sharing some more of what I learned in the near future. Pretty interesting stuff from my perspective.

[kahlmyishmael]

1) I liked the way Sacco dealt with those Russian DOS hackers

2)Interesting comments about Carruthers and the ESPN Gameday van

[Will]

Intresting read Gregg, im curious to know how u got the opportunity to dine with the CEO of Cris?

[The Judge]

Originally Posted by Will

Intresting read Gregg, im curious to know how u got the opportunity to dine with the CEO of Cris?

I was tagging along with a mutual friend who was traveling with me in CR. First time meeting those guys at Cris face to face.

[Mr_Madtown]

good read, I will be looking forward to your next post

[robertg]

very good read, I wonder what their take would be on the latest arrest(sportingbet) Were they doing the same kinds of things as BOS?

[The Judge]

Originally Posted by robertg

very good read, I wonder what their take would be on the latest arrest(sportingbet) Were they doing the same kinds of things as BOS?

No they were not. Peters from Sportingbet was wanted by the State of Louisiana, not the Feds.

See this thread: Sportingbet Executive Wanted by Louisiana, not Feds

[Klazerman]

Interesting reading.
Klaze

[BigdaddyQH]

Interesting article. I think it was obvious that they had gone too far when they started to openly recruit bookies, and started to take rediculously large wagers on horse races. You could see this coming. It was a matter of time. Now the question becomes just how far the feds go. As I am sure you know, the Ricco act has very long arms. Knowingly doing business with a person involved in the rackets can get you busted. This includes every bookie around, by the broadest definition, which we know the feds use. I have seen, first hand, just how far this act can go in a court of law. The industry is going to take a hit. It is just a question of how big a hit.

[robertg]

makes perfect sense that Louisiana would get in the act....Goodness knows theres not any corruption to clean up within the "Beacon of Integrity" we know as Louisiana. Louisiana state govt probably passed such a law because off shore was taking too much business from organized crime in the state.

[Seanie Mac]

didnt rome already go over this before judge, are you copying stuff like pittviper?

[The Judge]

Originally Posted by Seanie Mac

didnt rome already go over this before judge, are you copying stuff like pittviper?

Please quit stalking me, Seanie. It's not good for your image.

[Seanie Mac]

about to put ur image back up judge, u stud you