BetOnSports Pleads Guilty

U.S. Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway for the Eastern District of Missouri announced that BetonSports, PLC, pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges. BetonSports, PLC, admitted today that it was involved in a racketeering conspiracy.

The plea agreement says that as long as the company respects its obligations under the plea agreement, including supplying witnesses and evidence in the cases against co-defendants, no further criminal prosecutions will be brought against it.

U.S. Attorney Hanaway said that BetonSports's illegal gambling operations should stop because of the plea agreement and of the terms of the civil junction. BetonSports, which is located in the United Kingdom, is the head of the companies involved in the illegal gambling businesses.

Sanctions have been imposed against BetonSports by Judge Jackson, because it had failed to appear and answer the criminal charges that were brought. By accepting this plea, the company accepts the U.S. justice system.

Because it pleaded guilty to the racketeering conspiracy charge, the company admitted that it was involved in racketeering acts: repeated mail and wire fraud, operated an illegal gambling business, laundered money, and admitted to multiple state gambling felony charges.

The company admitted that at first it conducted illegal sports betting business in New York City in the early 1990s. The founder of the company was arrested in New York in 1993 on gambling charges, but soon he moved his operations in Florida where he continued to accept sports wagers from bettors in New York by telephone.

The Enterprise moved to Aruba, in the West Indies in 1995. It established and controlled toll-free telephone services, in order to be able to accept sport wagers from gamblers in the U.S. The Enterprise then relocated to Antigua, and then to Costa Rica in 1997, where it accepted sports wagers through the Internet.

One of their first computer-based sports book was called the North American Sports Association International, which became betonsports.com. The website offered the possibility of wagering on professional and college football and basketball, as well as on many other professional and amateur sporting events, which was illegal.

In 2004, BetonSports PLC was formed by the members of the enterprise, and it accepted wagers from individuals in Missouri and elsewhere throughout the United States. The same members allowed fraudulent promotional materials to be available, which was once again illegal.

The company might be fined with $500,000 or even more because the maximum fine can be the double of the losses caused by the enterprise. The company might even be forced to return the money it received from the U.S. gamblers. In the plea is stated that the court doesn’t want to charge another individuals, except the ones that are already charged.

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri and the Criminal Division's Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, prosecutes the case. The Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the FBI gathered the necessary evidences for the case. Several state and local police departments, including Chesterfield Police Department and departments in Florida and Washington have helped in the case.