Sportingbet Was Random Choice Say Cops

Published: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

SPORTINGBET WAS A RANDOM CHOICE SAY LOUISIANA COPS

Online gambling exercise was routine state law enforcement says police chief.

Forget the numerous conspiracy theories carried by international media on the recent law enforcement activities against online gambling; the Louisiana authorities at least had no orchestrated national or international plan in mind when they embarked on the action that jailed British businessman Peter Dicks earlier this month.

According to an interview conducted with the Financial Times this week, Louisiana's investigation into online gambling originated in a routine staff meeting this year, when Captain Joe Lentini of the state Police Gaming Enforcement division reminded officers of the state's law against online gambling.

"I saw that this was a growing problem so I told our staff that I wanted them to find out if these sites were taking bets online from Louisiana," says Mr Lentini, who heads the division's casino section.

Over the next several months, his agents trawled the internet to find online gambling sites that are prepared to flout state laws by accepting bets in Louisiana. Sportingbet, the UK-listed company whose former chairman, Peter Dicks, was arrested in New York this month on a Louisiana warrant, was the first site that the agents snared.

"It was the luck of the draw," says Mr Lentini. "That was the first one that came up on the screen and it was one of the easiest ones to find information about." The warrant against senior execs like Dicks was issued in St Landry parish, a largely rural part of Louisiana's Cajun region, because that was where the enforcement agents were when they placed their bet with the British company.

"We told them that we were in Louisiana. We did not hide anything," says Mr Lentini.

"Mr Dicks' website is taking bets from citizens of Louisiana. A lot of people say, 'how can you stop people doing that?' But there are plenty of sites out there that do not accept bets from Louisiana citizens because they know it is illegal under our state law. They should be able to identify any IP address that is in Louisiana. It is something that can be easily done but this site chose not to even attempt to stop us."

Mr Lentini says Mr Dicks is one of four individuals connected to Sportingbet that have had warrants issued for their arrest. He declined to give their names but said it would be reasonable to assume they were executives or directors of the company.

Other companies are also being investigated, said Mr Lentini, although he did not know whether any further warrants had been issued so far. "We have agents all over the state working this daily," he says. "There are other sites we're looking into."

Louisiana's attempt to extradite Mr Dicks from New York has been held up by legal wrangling over the legitimacy of the warrant.

Mr Lentini says the problem involves a "glitch" in New York state laws that appears to allow extradition to another state only in cases where the alleged crime was committed in one of the two states involved.

Mr Dicks' lawyers have argued that their client cannot be extradited because he has not been in Louisiana for more than 20 years and therefore cannot have committed a crime there.

"Even if [Mr Dicks] wins this battle, other [suspects] coming to the US through other airports might have a different experience," warns Lentini.