NETeller people arrested. TradeSports people, next??

Chris F. Masse January 16th, 2007

The American authorities have swooped on the founding shareholders of NETeller, the company which specialises in money transfers between online gambling sites and players.

Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre, both former directors of the firm, were detained in the US yesterday, while travelling separately.

It’s probably not a good idea for TEN CEO to go to the crappy, phone-booth prediction market conference, in the U.S.

It’s probably not a good time for U.S.-based service providers (including conference organizers) to have any relationship with TradeSports.

All this is unfortunate, of course.

Regulations
Comments(2)

2 Responses to “NETeller people arrested. TradeSports people, next??”

# Jason Ruspini on 16 Jan 2007 at 2:28 PM

The U.S. Attorney General’s office of Southern New York confirms that this was in “connection with the creation and operation of an Internet payment services company that facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars of illegal gambling proceeds from United States citizens to the owners of various Internet gambling companies located overseas.”

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_law/article/1771

Neteller had previously stated that they would comply with UIGEA.
# Chris Masse on 16 Jan 2007 at 2:47 PM

Thanks for the details. All this is unfortunate. Everybody or every entity that touched Internet gambling and betting is at risk.

Now, the question is: Would they make an exception for real-money prediction exchanges (TradeSports-InTrade), or will they put them in the same bag with the Internet gambling and betting operators?

We all wish that they leave out the real-money prediction exchanges, but it’s better to prepare for the worst. The recent splitting between TradeSports and InTrade might not be enough.

I’m not a lawyer or a law professor. (Where’s Tom Bell when when need him?)