Techdirt.com: Federal Agents Did Not Gamble on Bodog.com

An interesting argument was raised by a colleague of Gambling911.com Tuesday following the indictment of Bodog.com and four individuals connected to the company.

The US Attorneys Office in Maryland announced the indictment Tuesday immediately following the seizure of the Bodog.com domain. 

“Sports betting is illegal in Maryland, and federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. “Many of the harms that underlie gambling prohibitions are exacerbated when the enterprises operate over the internet without regulation.

“Today’s indictment of Bodog Entertainment Group S.A. and its founder and operators sends a strong deterrent message to those that facilitate illegal online sports betting operations and commit crimes against our nation’s financial system,” said William Winter, Special Agent in Charge of ICE HSI in Baltimore. “The proceeds from illegal Internet gambling are sometimes used to fuel organized crime and support criminal activity. ICE HSI, together with our law enforcement partners, will disrupt and dismantle organizations that commit these crimes, regardless of their location, whether here in the United States or abroad.”

But the indictment alleges agents placed wagers on the Bodog.com website as recently as January.

“They could not have,” suggested the Gambling911.com colleague.  “The Bodog.com site has not been active for betting since last spring.”

The Bodog.com site initially redirected to a .EU extension before redirecting to a completely different – albeit connected – website this past October, Bovada.lv.

Sure agents were cited as having played on the Bodog.com website in the past (this was an investigation that got underway in 2006), but many have questioned whether there was something preventing the US Attorney from seizing the Bodog.com Web domain back in April of last year when that office shut off nearly a dozen other online gambling sites. 

While this may be seen as grasping for straws, the popular technology website TechDirt.com doesn’t see it that way. 

Mike Masnick of TechDirt.com: 

The affidavit for seizure claims that federal agents set up accounts and gambled on Bodog.com, but I really wonder if they didn't miss the fact that they were redirected to another site. Checking the internet archive, it certainly looks like Bodog.com was pretty much out of commission long before the feds claimed to have set up and used accounts there.

TechDirt, like Gambling911.com, has been following the US Government seizures involving other industries, primarily Web streaming and the imitation products sector.  The later doesn’t generate a whole lot of sympathy by the masses but Web streaming and file sharing sites enjoy a substantial following.  Somewhere along these lines we have behemoth sites like eBay, a site where knockoffs could readily be auctioned off, and YouTube, itself a streaming video site not unlike those the US Government is currently targeting.   

Masnick summed it up like this:  “The whole thing seems like a big waste of time by some federal officials who like big headlines, but don't seem particularly focused on stopping crimes that actually cause real harm.”

- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher