Bangkok police in Thailand arrested 11 people, including two foreigners, for operating an online casino over the Internet from a building right opposite the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) headquarters.
The group opened their office, HK & T (TV and Film) Production, on the Rasa Tower II Building’s 12th floor in Soi Phaholyothin 19 – just 40 metres from the CSD head office.
About 50 Thailand police officers yesterday raided the place at 10.30am and arrested a 29-year-old Hong Kong man Than Yiu Hung, a 33-year-old Malaysian male Ang Kong Yong and their Thai accomplices – four men and five women for broadcasting baccarat games via a webcam on ok2628.com.
The Thailand officers also seized five televisions, 16 computers, two closed-circuit cameras, and four baccarat tables. During the raid of the office – leased to a Thai woman Chatduan Maneesawangwong, 37, since September – police found two men in tuxedos dealing casino game cards to the webcams for gamblers to bet via the Internet.
27 arrested in NY Internet gambling bust
NEW YORK — Prosecutors brought charges Wednesday against 27 people — including a Major League Baseball scout — in connection with a billion-dollar-a-year Internet sports gambling ring, the first such case since President Bush signed a ban on Internet gambling last month.
The charges were brought in connection with a site called Playwithal.com, run by professional power player James Giordano, 52, of Pine Crest, Fla., New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Also charged was Frank Falzarano, 52, of Seaford, N.Y., identified by prosecutors as a scout for the Washington Nationals and a former scout for the San Francisco Giants. His alleged role in the operation was not immediately clear.
Search warrants executed in several locations resulted in the seizure of gambling records, computers and hundreds of millions of dollars in property. Fox news report.
MGM Casino CEO optimistic about Internet Gambling in USA
New Democratic leadership in the U.S. Congress could provide a chance to explore legalization of online Togel gambling, the chief executive of casino operator MGM Mirage said on Wednesday.
A new U.S. law making it illegal for banks, credit card companies and online payment systems to process payments to online gambling companies “makes no sense whatsoever,” MGM CEO Terry Lanni said at a gambling conference held here.
“The Republican Party pandered to the religious right,” he added.
In October, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee was successful in tacking the Internet gambling ban onto a popular bill on port safety.
Frist is retiring from Congress as he mulls a possible run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
Passage of the U.S. law pummeled shares of British-listed Internet gambling companies, which have since withdrawn from the U.S. market.
“Britain wants to be second to none in regulation of Internet gambling … We firmly believe that the way forward is to regulate, rather than prohibit,” said Peter Dean, chairman of Britain’s Gaming Commission, who also spoke at the conference.
Lanni said MGM would like to see a study commissioned to examine whether online gambling can be successfully regulated in the United State.
The American Gaming Association, of which Lanni is the current chair, is expected to decide in December whether to pursue legislation calling for such a study.
Dean said that from a British perspective, the U.S. ban is puzzling, in that “prohibition doesn’t have a conspicuous record of success in this country … the obvious result is that the activity is going to be driven underground.”
