Forget Jailing Online Gamblers; How About Jailing Online Gambling Execs?

from the whoops dept

Last week, when the House of Representatives tried to clarify online gambling laws to make it clear that poker was bad and deserved jailtime, but horse racing and lotteries were good, the various online casinos laughed it off, with BetOnSports CEO, David Carruthers, particularly dismissive of the bill in the press, noting: “We continue to believe that the likelihood of the bill passing the Senate is remote.” Investors agreed, pushing the stock of many online gambling sites up, as investors laughed their way to the bank. Who’s laughing now, however? Authorities apparently detained Carruthers at a US airport during a stopover on his flight from the UK back to his home base in Costa Rica today. Investors aren’t quite as happy, with the stock price of many online gambling sites dropping on the news.


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Comments on “Forget Jailing Online Gamblers; How About Jailing Online Gambling Execs?”

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13 Comments
dont u get it? says:

online gambling

Dont you get it? US based lotteries, horse betting and casinos built on real estate provide an income source to run the govenrment thru income tax and business tax revenues. Virtual casinos offshore don’t kick back an economic benefit to the US government or it’s citizens like state lotteries. If they did there would be no problem. The economic benefit goes to Costa Rica, Gibraltar, Jamaica, or wherever there are gambling servers.

So here we are pouring billions of US dollars into foreign accounts. The problem? The government has to print more money to keep up supply, because it isnt replenished thus increasing inflation because now your dollar isn’t worth as much as before.

I bet if the Senate enacted a law to tax winnings enforceably by every US based virtual gambler, then there wouldn’t be a problem. But how to tax an online gambler and collect when they can’t begin to collect on goods bought over the internet? I didn’t win any money last week, did you? What winnings?

Yet another Anonymous Coward says:

Re: So lets get this straight

An example recently in the news: Casinos in NJ had to close because of the govt. shutdown. The state regulators could not be present to make sure the state got it’s share of taxes…

So, the other gambling site owners take note:

1. Move to a non-extradition country.

2. Buy you own long-range jet for travel, to avoid where you aren’t welcome.

3. Use alternative funding mechanisms for payments.

4. Continue business.

5. But, don’t make enough money to be worth an invasion.

Anonymous Coward says:

nonsense

show me one major industry where million/billions of dollars ARENT going overseas

most of america’s industries are owned by foreign investors, tons of profits go overseas every year, and tons of them manage to avoid paying alot of taxes as well, by basing their companies out of p.o. boxes on grand cayman or something 😉

i think maybe congress is just fishing for their payoff

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