BetonSports and Lord Glentoran Give US Justice Dept the Finger
Burke Hansen, in another excellent piece regarding the BetonSports debacle for The Register, asks the burning $4.5 billion question:
"Just where did all that BetonSports.com money go?"
We are no closer to any kind of answer, despite months of legal wrangling, he answers. (see the article here)
Hansen, like many in the mainstream news media, aren't about to let Clive Archer, Lord Glentoran and the rest of the BetonSports crew off so easy. Neither are the Feds for that matter. He appeared at two industry events last month, ICE and CAP Euro.
Following the arrest of BetonSports CEO David Carruthers - who remains under house detention awaiting trial - the online gambling firm shut down but failed to return US customer funds despite the US government ordering BoS to do just that.
Now, almost eight months later, the BetonSports debacle continues to garner headlines, as US District Court Judge Carol Jackson last week imposed contempt of court fines of $5,000 per day on the company for skipping yet another court date, Hansen writes.
"At the company’s behest attorney Jeffrey Demerath skipped another hearing February 2nd- a hearing that had been scheduled appropriately enough so the company could explain why it should not be held in contempt for skipping a previous hearing, back in January. Mr. Demerath did not or could not explain to either Judge Jackson or US Attorney Michael Fagan just why he was being paid not to attend court hearings."
Then there is that one lordly fellow who sits on the BetonSports Board of Directors, his hands seemingly wiped clean, Britain's House of Lords, Lord Glentoran, the former gold medal bobsledder turned Shadow Minister for Northern Ireland. An aptly given title considering Glentoran continues to sit in the shadows and has said little regarding the BetonSports affair. He joined the BetonSports Board of Directors back in 2004.
"His presence on the board of a company in the middle of an Enron style meltdown has caused considerable consternation in the online gambling community. In a rambling debate in the House of Lords about gambling on the 2012 Olympics back on February 2, 2006, Lord Glentoran veered off into a discussion about the general state of online gambling at the time."
'Something over 75 per cent of betting today takes place on the Internet. Not even the Americans have managed to control the Internet in any tiny way. Our company gets 70 per cent of its revenue from North America - from sports betting on North American football league, baseball, hockey and college sport. In North America it is illegal to use the telephone wires to bet.
David Carruthers is seen in background
'There is something called the Wire Act, from 1969 or thereabouts. The Americans have been trying for a long time to enforce their regulations against such use, and they have totally and absolutely failed. They were taken by Antigua to the World Trade Organization for restriction of trade and lost - and appealed and lost again, to little Antigua. That is the power of the Internet - and most of gambling and sports betting is done through the Internet. One of the other ways in which to attack it is to attack the banks.'
Hansen writes that "although Lord Glentoran was (and is) only a non-executive member of the board, his comments, eerily prescient in some ways while smugly indifferent and misinformed in others, provide a glimpse into the thinking of internet gambling executives prior to the American crackdown. Rather than avoid the rather thin legal ice they knew themselves to be on, many took a gamble on the lucrative American market. Some, like the former Neteller executives arrested last month, got out early, and even felt secure enough to risk American travel."
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Gambling911.com News Wire
Originally published February 8, 2007 11:23 pm ET
