Four online casino sites which include two British are facing court action by french casinos seeking to bar them from receiving a license to operate in France when the Gallic market is liberalized this summer. Britain's Sportingbet and 888 Holdings are being sued along with Malta's Unibet and Bwin of Austria by three of France's biggest casino operators Barrière, Joagroupe, and Tranchant, are asking the Criminal Court in Paris prepares to end a state monopoly on online gambling and to block any licensing to the accused online casino operators for at least two years.

The three online casinos – Tranchant, Barrière and Joagroupe, which run a total of 104 casinos, say their online rivals have flouted the law by setting up French language sites to tout for custom in France without waiting for parliamentary approval. They told Paris Criminal Court that the online groups had ''violated French legislation in a deliberate and patent manner''.

The French casino owners want the foreign online casino sites to be imposed a penalty on any future licensing attempt once France opens its gaming market for actions committed while the market is still closed. However, if the lawsuit is upheld by judges, the four Internet firms would find themselves at a notable disadvantage in a market thought to be worth hundreds of millions of euros a year.

The case, which is likely to end Wednesday, comes two weeks before the French Senate is expected to back a bill authorizing private online gamblers to apply for licences. The legislation has already been approved by the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, and is likely to come into force in time for the French to bet on the World Cup.

However, there are about 100 operators will apply for a licence, according to French government estimates, but only about half will receive one. They will have the right to take bets on sports betting and casino games such as auto racing, basketball and poker, but not on activities such as one-arm bandits considered by French officials to be dangerously addictive.

From this time on, the new operators will face high tax rates which critics say are intended to favour the two state-run firms which control the French market at present — Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), the bookmakers, and Française des Jeux (FdJ), the national lottery. An estimated 3,000,000 French people already betting online with online casino sites operating outside France.

Source: http://www.onlinecasinoadvisory.com/casino-news/online/french-casinos-sue-foreign-online-gambling-operators-43594.htm

Last Monday, a force of more than 300 police offices and investigators from the Jerusalem and Southern District Assessors Offices raided the homes of 36 suspects nationwide. Scores of gamblers have been summoned for questioning, and property worth tens of millions of shekels has been seized.

In a statement released on Monday, The Israel Police National Economic Crimes Unit and the online gambling taskforce have darkened the screens of online betting site betbet.us a formerly bet555.net online casino site, which generated $90 million dollars revenue since May 2007. During the early hours over 300 police officers and tax authority officials performed coordinated raids at homes of 37 suspected gamblers and seized assets worth tens of millions of money.

An elaborate hi-tech support network enabled the site's ongoing operation, police said, including a Web site construction team, a technical support team, and betting agents. The original investigation had launched due to suspicions over money laundering and organized crime. The possibility of more serious, violent crimes stemming from the gambling operation.

The police said that online gambling is one of the main activities of organized crime gangs in Israel. It also leads to other serious crimes, including extortion, violence, money laundering, tax evasion, and harming the public coffers.

In early 2008, intelligence was obtained that the chief suspect, a 38-year old resident of Or Yehuda was operating an online gambling site, bet555.net. The investigation found that the site had a turnover of hundreds of millions of shekels during the two and a half years that it was in operation. Profits rose from an initial 3 percent of turnover to more than 5 percent, amounting to millions of shekels. 70 million transactions were made on the website between April 2007 and June 2009, including both entering the website and placing of bets.

Twenty court orders authorizing the Tax Authority to seize the vehicles and assets of suspects had been made available before the raid, and 160 bank accounts have been frozen. "We employed techniques to monitor the Web site that are very similar to eavesdropping, Internet gambling is one of the severe crime phenomena among Israeli crime organizations, It brings with it other forms of serious crimes, like aggravated extortion, violence,money laundering, tax offenses, and theft of moneys from public funds." a police said.

Illinois has become the most recent in a rapidly growing number of states looking to oversee online gambling within state borders. The state Senate is considering legalizing horse race through online gambling or by phone.

State residents of Illinois USA are now able to wager online. Lawmakers in the State legislature decided that it was a good idea to let people in Illinois place there bets from the comfort of their own homes. Approving a bill which had already advanced through the Senate will let participants bet on horse races at online casinos and sportbettings online.

Members of the Illinois Racing Board say allowing online betting that could raise as much as $2 million for the state, with less than one proposal, which awaits action by Gov. Pat Quinn, Illinois horse racing tracks could partner with online casino sites, which would then act as electronic off-track betting parlors for the tracks.

All players could set up accounts and wager on races on their personal computers or hand-held devices. Losses would be deducted from the prepaid accounts and wins would be added to the accounts.

Under a related plan, officials at the Illinois Lottery have asked for an opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice about whether it's legal to let people pick lottery numbers and buy their tickets over the Internet.

Illinois online gambling accommodates players to place their bets and play online without threat of legal problems. Illinois residents have many options when it comes to online gambling. Online casinos, sportsbooks, and poker rooms are how Illinois residents will do their gaming. Regardless of which route they take, big fun and perhaps reward is to be found through one of these venues

The US Department of Justice asserts that all online gambling is illegal, however, it was allowed on a number of domestic companies to take Internet wagers without intrusions and the all far off online casinos have met head on US investigations and prosecutions.

The lawmakers thought proceeds from the slot machines would bring an approximated $375,000,000 every year into state tax coffers. However, there is no comment that was contactable from the US Attorney General Eric Holder or his representatives.

The former chief of Betonsports, David Carruthers, has been hold in custody for 3 years under house arrest, but after 3 years of being under house arrest, David Carruthers, decided to withdraw an arranged guilty plea just days before he was due to be sentenced by a US court on federal racketeering conspiracy for violating US' swaggering restrictions of online gaming including repeated mail fraud, Wire Wager Act violations, operation of an illegal gambling business and money laundering.

Carruthers declined comment after the court hearing, but said during the proceeding that he initially was unaware online gambling was illegal when he was hired byGary Kaplan in June 2000. Carruthers' attorney, Scott Rosenblum of St. Louis, did not return phone calls seeking comment. However, the company itself, based in Costa Rica, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in May 2007.

David Carruthers' arrest took place in Dallas airport after coming in from Bahrain. Carruthers was supposed to land in Costa Rica, where the operational base of the company was located.

The purpose and intentions for Carruther's withdrawal of his guilty plea stay behind uncertain. According to a spokesperson for the US attorney’s office in St Louis, Missouri, the prosecutors are not willing to talk about the case. The company’s founder, Gary Kaplan, along with other Betonsports executives, is still pleading guilty.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, BetonSports agreed to supply evidence and witnesses in the cases against Carruthers and the company’s founder, Gary Kaplan, in exchange for which the company was released from the threat of criminal prosecution.

This recent development is expected to catch on the hop the supporters of Carruthers, who have been keeping their fingers crossed on his return home on Friday, at which point he was expected to be permited to return to the UK having already been in U.S. custody for more than three years.

Federal agents have been investigating offshore sports gambling since 1997, and BetOnSports since 2001. After a short legal filing, the court has granted the “motion to set aside David Carruthers' guilty plea.” The hearing for the “change of plea” is scheduled meanwhile for October 14.

A recent law suit in Kentucky has allured world-wide attention because it could create a very fraught with danger case – the application of local law to the domain name system and websites that are available globally.

The issue that started last September 2008, when a Kentucky trial court came into an order proclaiming to seize 141 domain names allegedly involved in gambling.

The Kentucky pleaded the courts to give it control of over 140 gambling-related domains in an attempt to obstruct Kentucky residents from accessing online gambling sites. There are a number of poker sites were named in the request.

The first judge in the matter agreed, saying the online gambling sites named had to block access to their properties by Kentucky residents within 30 days or forfeit ownership of the domains. A brief and successful appeal stayed the order, leading to the current hearing in from of the State Supreme Court.

The basis of the order was the allegation by the state of Kentucky that online gambling violates Kentucky’s state laws regulating gambling. A succeeding amendment to the order would discharge online gambling sites that installed a “geographic filter” restraining access by Kentucky residents.

Today, The Commonwealth of Kentucky has implored an Appeals Court for more time to respond in a highly disclosed case dealing with its flop attempt to seize 141 online gambling domains.

A Motion for Enlargement of Time is being petitioned in order to file for a Reply Brief. The ruling do away with an October 22, 2009 decision made by Franklin County Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate that the declared online gambling domains could be seized by the state because online gambling domains constituted illegal gambling devices that were constrained by Kentucky law.

At first Beshear and the state of Kentucky seized 141 online gambling domain names, as they claimed that the online gambling sites were operating illegally in the state. However, an appeals court made the ruling that the laws in the state of Kentucky against devices used for gambling did not apply to the Internet.

Among the sites targeted online casinos and poker sites by Kentucky were PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, Bodog , Slotocash and several renowned sports betting sites. Leading the case against Bashear in court is the Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association.

The Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association filed a lawsuit in opposition to the state of Kentucky, as they have claimed that the domain name seizure was unconstitutional. Kentucky has appealed the case the ruling all the way up to the Supreme Court and they will hear a build up in this case near the end of October.