American Sportsbooks Operators Arrested and Charged

The online gambling software
industry is still in shock after the owners of the Extension Software of Arizona have been arrested and charged by ‘promoting gambling’ in a Manhattan court.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr claimed the company generated “at least $2.3 million in profits” and is accused Extension of “promoting and profiting from online gaming software that provides online sports books the infrastructure to run illegal bookmaking operations for a variety of sports, including professional and college football and basketball, as well as baseball, hockey, horse-racing, and soccer.”

The charges against the defendants: one count of Promoting Gambling in the First Degree, which is against the American gambling laws.

District Attorney Vance, Jr. opined: “These defendants abetted large-scale illegal gambling in the U.S. and abroad. n doing so, they gave bettors an easy way to place illegal wagers, and created an appetite for further unlawful activity.”

Extension Software developed and supported an online gaming software platform branded Action Sportsbook International (ASI). The software let bookmakers offer an illegal bookmaking operations based in offshore locations such as Costa Rica, the Caribbean, and Canada.

Vance continued:”In order to use ASI, bookmakers paid a quarterly licensing fee to Extension for an access key. For continued access, the bookmakers would make payments on the quarterly invoices they received from Extension.”

The District Attorney went on stating that the majority of the approximately $1.1 million cash and $1.2 million money orders on Extension’s bank accounts are alleged to be direct proceeds of illegal US online sportsbooks
operations.

According to US authorities, the defendants made at least $2.3 million in three years.

Other sources pointed out that Extension licensed its services only to operators in countries outside the US, where online gambling is legal.

The court case is continued next month.