BetOnSports willing to plead guilty

One of the most popular online gambling companies, Bet on Sports, is ready to plead guilty to racketeering and wire fraud charges as a part of a plea agreement with the DoJ.

The chairman of the troubled online betting enterprise, Clive Parritt, said that a settlement would prevent any future charges being brought up against the board of directors, which includes Lord Glentoran, the Tory shadow minister for Northern Ireland. Creditors and shareholders will meet on May 16th to get important updates on the case, and the BetOnSports liquidation will be officially announced then.

Parritt is quoted in the British Telegraph saying: "We are close to an agreement with the DoJ under which the case against BetOnSports will be closed. We will agree the company has been associated with being part of an 'illegal gambling enterprise' between 1992 and 2006 but essentially we are being penalized for buying the company from Kaplan."

several executives from BetonSports have been arrested in the past few months, including the chief executive David Carruthers, currently under house arrest in USA, and the company's founder Gary Kaplan. There is no mention if the money owed to US bettors would be paid off, but a big part of them has been used to cover the betting website's legal expenses around the DoJ case, which makes it highly unlikely.

05/06/2007