Sportingbet PLC is an online gambling company that owns, among other things, Paradise Poker and Sportingbet.au. Sportingbet shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange. At about 9:30 this morning, I read in an online WSJ article that "Merrill Lynch Friday placed 8.4 million Sportingbet PLC (SBT.LN) shares, according to traders familiar with the transaction." The shares were placed on behalf of an institution. Although the link to the article is still currently working, the headline for the article no longer appears on the site, and the article cannot be found by searching the site.
I would like to know what the DOJ thinks of this. The DOJ has formerly characterized such activities as the provision of credit card services to online gamblers, the provision of electronic payment services to online gambling sites, and the selling of ad space to online gambling sites as "aiding and abetting" illegal online gambling. Wouldn't the provision of investment banking or brokerage services to online gambling firms be similarly criminal? (Note: in case you're reading for the first time, I don't think any of these should be illegal.)
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1. Posted by Bryce on February 3, 2006 @ 10:00 | Permalink
The gambling issue is just another branch of an overall problem facing us called "adult entertainment" where the internet firms "promote" many addictive and harmful vices with no regulation from government agencies.
Only China has succeeded by getting Google to censor a few certain subversive sites.
States can earn huge revenues if they can get motived to implement various forms of AEI Taxes to help regulate the commerce of this business group.
More info about AEI legistlation efforts at
http://eagletroop.blogspot.com
2. Posted by Christine Hurt on February 3, 2006 @ 10:07 | Permalink
Bryce, obviously if our readers wish to learn more about your organization, then they should. For my part, there are approximately zero times a day in which I think to myself, "I wish this country were more like China."
3. Posted by David Watts on February 9, 2006 @ 22:57 | Permalink
If aiding and abetting online gambling sites is a problem, what about aiding and abetting the aidors and abettors? Cryptologic, which provides software and payments processing that runs many gambling sites, trades on NASDAQ and has several large U.S. institutional investors.
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