Washington Post Article Probes Online Casinos: 1
A new article was released by the Washington Post on online casinos. The title
of the full five page article is, “Players Gamble on Honesty, Security of
Internet Betting”. The article was written by Gilbert M. Gaul who was on the
Sixty Minutes team that produced the expose of the online casino industry. The
piece focuses on the online casino cheating scandal that involved the two
websites, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet.com. He illustrates in the article
just how the websites had insiders steal over $20 million from players in the
span of four years and who was responsible for the cheating scandal. As we now
know, the hackers were former Ultimate Bet employees and also a former world
poker champion.
The author outlines those two scandals as the biggest in the history of online
casinos. He then questions the industry as it seems to lack regulation and
punishment for those that don not play by the rules. One of the problems that he
sees in the online casino industry is the fact that most websites are run out of
foreign countries that have no regulations and do not have to report to anyone.
With little to no regulations comes even less enforcement for the over seas
online casinos. This means that players all over the globe have little to no
security in knowing who is watching their game or even where their money is
going. Gaul claims that online casino owners have been known to hide behind
multiple names and even get away with dodging complaints about cheating. "The
licensing agencies there essentially operate as pay-as-you-go boutiques,
generating millions of dollars in fees while showing little interest in policing
rogue sites," he said about the rise in revenue from online casinos.