World Exclusive: Holocaust Museum Killer Had Ties to Online Gambling

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The man who shot up the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., USA, earlier this week and killed a security guard is involved in the online gambling business, PokerHelper.com can report in a world exclusive.

James W. von Brunn, an 88-year-old U.S. military veteran and white supremacist, was arrested after the Wednesday shooting, which killed Steven Johns and injured two others.

Von Brunn, of Annapolis, Maryland, USA, ran a website that contained, among other things, racist and anti-semitic ravings.

The website, called Holy Western Empire and available on the Internet at www.holywesternempire.org, had an advertisement on it for an online casino called Casino Tropez, which is available on the Internet at www.casinotropez.com.

According to the Casino Tropez website, the online casino offers various forms of online gambling, including video poker, roulette, keno, blackjack and slot machines. ? A notice on the casino website states: "Casino Tropez is a world-leading online casino with a long-established reputation for providing players with the ultimate online gambling experience. Casino Tropez prides itself with a software delivering over 100 state-of-the-art Las Vegas-style casino games."

The notice goes on to say: "Find out why we are awarded as the best Internet casino with better odds than any land-based casino. Casino Tropez is committed to each player's security and safety and absolute fair gaming practices, as well as providing round-the-clock professional customer support."

Elsewhere on the website it says that Casino Tropez is operated from the Phillipines and licensed in Antigua and Barbuda.

It is unclear exactly what type of business relationship von Brunn has with the online casino.

Normally, when a website carries ads for online casinos, online poker rooms or online sports betting operations, the website owner receives a fee from the online gambling entity for driving traffic to the entity.

Sometime it's a flat fee, such as x number of dollars a month or year.

Sometimes it's a set fee for each "click-through" or person who visits the gambling site by clicking on the ad.

And sometimes it's a kickback or commission-if an online casino, for example, picks up a new customer through another website's ad, that website's owner may earn or get kicked back a percentage of the customer's gambling losses at the casino.

The third type or arrangement is specifically illegal for Americans.

As of Thursday, von Brunn's website was taken offline, but what it looked like can still be seen at cache sites, such as www.archives.org.

A cache of the page on von Brunn's now-removed website where the ad was can still be viewed at http://web.archive.org/web/20071010131040/www.holywesternempire.org/page2.html 

 

Submitted by Thomas Somach on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 12:05
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Comments

Funny, John Allen Mohammed

Sat, 06/13/2009 - 12:41 — Guest
Funny, John Allen Mohammed and Lee Malvo hatched their little murder spree on Antigua. Coincidence?

Dangerously Misleading

Sat, 06/13/2009 - 03:57 — Guest
I wholeheartedly agree with the comment above. Has this dangerous fruitcake put an affiliate link to Amazon on his site, would you have 'revealed' his 'ties' to publishing? Other than embarassing Casino Tropez and highlighting that they really should police their affiliates better, this article really just plays into the hands of those who would sieze any tidbit of negativity to bash the gaming industry with. An embarassing piece of "journalism".

Yep

Mon, 06/15/2009 - 20:00 — Guest
Totally agree. And not just dangerously misleading, plain old ignorant. If he used a Mac, why not blast out the headline "Holocaust Museum Killer Had Ties to Apple"? He probably hosted on a free web host that injects ads onto his page, and he had nothing to do with it himself. Bottom line, you guys are fucking stupid. And not in a cute or ironic way. Just. Fucking. Stupid.

vonBrunn

Sat, 06/13/2009 - 02:49 — Guest
Chris - why would you publish something like this? You know damn well he was likely a 2-bit affiliate of Casino Tropez' and likely made next to nothing. This article made it sound like you had only a new vague understanding of online casino affiliate relationships. While I agree that it's almost ridiculous that a white supremist site would feel it worth while to advertise an online gaming site on his own site, reporting on it does nothing but draw further negative attention to the industry. IMHO, you could have / should have just ignored this one. It's doing nothing to help anyone or anything related to the business that keeps your employees and yourself clothed and fed.