Online gambling affiliate sentenced to 10 years

The operator of two gambling Web sites in Texas has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and ordered to pay nearly $1 million in restitution for scamming dozens of people.

Gambling website owner sentenced to 10 years Robert Eon Marshall, 58, who pleaded guilty in January to mail fraud, was sentenced Friday.

Marshall was the founder and president of Fort Worth-based ECM Group and operated WorldPokerParty.com and Double YourMoneyCasino.com, which linked to two other online gambling sites.

The other Web sites would pay Marshall a percentage of gamblers' losses. He told investors that he would eventually develop a separate gambling Web site, authorities said. He sold ownership in his company for $10,000 per unit, but authorities said the program generated less than $1,000 in revenue for Marshall's company.

However, in 2003 and 2004 he told investors the company was successful and mailed false earnings reports so they would invest more, prosecutors said. At least 41 people, mostly elderly victims using retirement money, lost more than $900,000.

It appears that the charges were filed on the base of mail fraud and false reports, and not on the online casino and online poker affiliation. OGPaper will continue to investigate this case and we will bring you the results as they come in.