BetOnSports online gambling operation fined with probation

Although the website no longer seems to exist, and company officials have been jailed and fined, US prosecutors weren't done with BetOnSports until the company itself was judged in a court of law. The online gambling operator was given five years probation and fined us$ 28.2 million Tuesday in US District Court.

The company's attorneys say it already owed the US almost us$ 8 million it could not pay before the fine was levied, and that the online gambling site has more liabilities than assets. Visitors attempting to access the sports betting site receive a message that the link no longer exists.

The company had arranged a civil settlement with the US in 2006, after its indictment for running an illegal gambling operation. BetOnSports stopped taking bets from US players at that point, but the next year the company was forced to plea guilty to racketeering charges.

Prosecutors say officials at the sports betting firm led customers to believe the operation was legal, and money could be withdrawn at will. But some us$ 40 million was lost to players as a result of US forfeitures and prosecutions, proving in a case of self-fulfilling prophecy that federal concerns about financial safety were justified.

The founder of the Internet betting site, Gary Kaplan, accepted a deal that led to his sentencing last month to forfeiture of about us$ 44 million, and 51 months in jail. His brother and sister were forced to accept felony convictions, given ten months house arrest, and divested of $6 million in offshore bank accounts.

Former CEO David Carruthers has also pled to conspiracy and racketeering charges, but has not yet been sentenced.