Is online gambling a terrorist front?

[The Judge]

To some, government's tactics smack of Prohibition, religious mania

BY BOB SHEMELIGIAN

The chips are down for principals in online gambling operations, and the cyberspace scenario is probably going to get worse. That's because federal officials, already incensed over billions in gambling revenues leaving the U.S., are trying to link Web gambling to terrorism.

"The reason why a lot of land-based casinos have backed away from the Internet and offshore enterprises is because of the Patriot Act," said Saverio Scheri of WhiteSand Consulting. "Investigators believe some of that money is being laundered and is ending up in the hands of terrorist groups."

SOUND FARFETCHED? CONSIDER:
The prosecutor leading the charge against online operations is David Litterick, 45, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who has built a reputation as an expert in terrorism. He prosecuted some of the terrorists involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. His prosecutions of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania earned him death threats, as well as a position at the Department of Homeland Security.

All U.S.-based casinos with annual gambling revenue of more than $1 million are classified as "financial institutions" by the Patriot Act and subject to strict government regulations, including adopting money-laundering programs, identifying the identity of foreign nationals and filing a Suspicious Activities Report to the Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Online operations skirt all these rules.

Law enforcement has arrested several principals of online gaming companies' subsidiary operations in recent weeks. On Jan. 15, federal agents arrested Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre, former directors and founding shareholders of Neteller. Their company is a publicly traded Internet-payment processor used by many online gambling sites, one of which continued serving American players after passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. BusinessWeek magazine estimates Neteller made nearly $850 million in fees during the first half of 2006 -- the bulk of it from American bettors.

The U.S. is seeking the extradition of Gary Kaplan from Costa Rica. Kaplan is the former owner of BETonSPORTS, which has ceased taking sports bets from Americans. David Carruthers, former CEO of the company, was arrested in the Dallas last July and is currently under house arrest at a hotel in St. Louis, awaiting trial. Carruthers, a food connoisseur and wine expert, appeared in court in leg irons.

Last week, subpoenas were issued to at least four Wall Street investment banks to hand over details of their dealings with online gambling companies. The firms reportedly are HSBC, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort, which have underwritten public offerings of some of the most popular and profitable online gambling sites, and have offices in London, a city that is the fundraising center of the online gaming industry. Shares in European online gambling companies, which already had been hit hard in recent months, fell as much as 14 percent after news of the subpoenas broke.

SCARE TACTICS
"There certainly have been a lot of scare tactics but they're working," said Sue Schneider, president of River City Group, which monitors the online gambling industry. Schneider says federal investigators are trying to link online gaming operations to terrorist groups.

"They've been saying that since 9/11," Schneider continued. "At some point it gets to be ridiculous and, more probably than not, what they'll do is drive the business underground."

One who agrees is Anthony Cabot, a Vegas-based attorney who specializes in Internet-gambling law. "After a while, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and frighteningly similar to Prohibition," Cabot said. "By forcing them underground, you increase the potential for less-reputable sites."

Another gaming expert, who asked to remain anonymous, was more succinct: "(Terrorism is) a smokescreen thrown up by the right-wing Christian lunatics in the government who want to control every facet of human behavior from birth to death. As far as I know, there isn't a scintilla of evidence there's any link between online sites and terrorist groups.

"With the new legislation, though that is ironically more likely to occur," the source continued, "since Russian mobsters and others are likely to see unregulated, rogue sites as a way to raise untaxed money."

REGULATION & TAXATION
It's hardly news to Cabot that investigators believe there is a link between online gambling sites and terrorist groups. "This argument has come up before," he said. "There are probably 2,000 online gaming sites. Can you say that all of those have no relationship whatsoever to terrorism? No, but what you can say is that the larger companies operating out of the United Kingdom are completely transparent. They have public shareholders and dividends, and audited financial statements."

Allyn Shulman, corporate counsel at Card Player magazine, added, "to specifically link terrorism to online gaming is disingenuous." She believes that, rather than prosecute operators of online gambling operations, the federal government should investigate how to regulate and tax the industry.

"This is just another example of the benefit of regulating and taxing online gaming, as they do in Antigua, where the online gaming companies must open their books to independent auditors who report back to the government," Shulman said.

But other industry observers note it doesn't look like that's going to happen ... at least not in the immediate future.

"You would think that officials would look at (the potential for tax revenue)," Schneider said. "This is an industry that has been advocating regulation and it would not be averse to some sort of tax structure. But this isn't about regulation and taxation. It's about control and (being) anti-gambling."

[pwherr]

Is online gambling a terrorist front?
Yes my prop bet on heads in the Superbowl helped arm a 100 men

[MightyMike]

Originally Posted by pwherr

Is online gambling a terrorist front?
Yes my prop bet on heads in the Superbowl helped arm a 100 men

At least you won the bet

[hammink]

Sure, there are links between online gambling and terrorism. But not nearly as much as between Bush/Cheney's oil interests and terrorism.

[pwherr]

Originally Posted by hammink

Sure, there are links between online gambling and terrorism. But not nearly as much as between Bush/Cheney's oil interests and terrorism.

LMFAO are you serious

[Minet12x]

If you hurry right now on stars osama is chip dumping to one of his "cells"

[hammink]

Originally Posted by pwherr

LMFAO are you serious

About a connection between online gambling and terrorism? No, of course not. And I will not get into politics here any more than I already did.

[Henry09]

actually I play a weekly sit and go with Bin Laden on a Sunday.

[pough]

the only links to be found are between the republican lawmakers and the land-based casinos who instantly profit from the situation.