Anyone who keeps up with gambling news in the United States knows that the entire genre is a good-news, bad-news deal. For instance, just when you hear a positive story about how California may start offering online gambling, you’ll hear another story about how California residents have been locked up for online gambling. Unfortunately, this time it’s the “bad news” side of the equation, as the headlines read that 17 people from three states, one of which is California, are being held for online gambling.
On October 28, law enforcement “cracked” a case that involved over 2,000 gamblers in an online gambling ring that was using an offshore site to facilitate wagers while actually hosting the site on US soil. It is estimated that millions of dollars were shuffled through banks in order to place these wagers, and an investigation culminated in a New York City grand jury indictment for 17 people. Arrests were subsequently made in New York, Nevada, and California. And Cali plays a major role here, as the ring’s “ringleader” was actually a man from Santa Clarita, Cyrus Irani.
If there’s any silver lining here, it’s that the police never went after the gamblers. What a lot of people don’t realize is that, in the USA, it’s actually legal for you to gamble. In face, we have vetted the most reputable legal California online gambling sites that accept all players from CA. What’s illegal is what these 17 people did, by creating a site on US soil that facilitated betting. Those arrested include bookmakers and accountants and those who created the network.
According to Richard A. Brown, Queens County’s DA, the gambling ring was collecting $32 million annually in bets on sports that were considered illegal. In a statement, Brown made it clear exactly where he stood on gambling, likening the sport to crack cocaine and saying that “It is highly addictive.” Oddly enough, law enforcement didn’t even catch on to the ring until some of those charged in the indictments began bidding on a Batman comic book. What law enforcement is doing staking out comic sales is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure that they have some Patriot Act provision that allows them to snoop around wherever they want.
This is huge news in New York. The state has been dealing with these gambling rings for a while now, while California is a relative newcomer. Though it stings worse for the Golden State. They’re currently trying to get legalized gambling through the legislature, and this criminal element won’t bode well for their odds of getting a majority vote.
While what these 17 charged individuals did was technically against America’s and California’s anti-gambling laws, you never know what lawyers will manage to turn up in potential unlawful search and seizures or other loopholes whereby government will be on the hook for illegally prying into people’s private lives. Probably not likely, as government typically gets away with any sort of ISP snooping, but this is certainly the hope of those charged. They are facing very serious charges and perhaps time in prison.
The irony here is that government fails to see how their draconian anti-gambling measures force these black markets into existence. They swing heavy hammers against those markets, claiming they’re criminal enterprises, but they wouldn’t even need to exist if gambling were simply legal. However, as Mr. “crack cocaine” reminds us, it’s more about government taking a moral stance than a legal stance. These individuals aren’t going to be considered criminals because they robbed or stole or the like. They’re going to be considered criminals because their actions went against the moral purity of lawmakers. Yeah, throw this one in the “bad news” category all the way.