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The UIGEA Online Casino Case Development

The Todd Lyons case in Massachusetts is shaping up to be quite an eye opener for online casinos and internet gambling companies that have just assumed that the UIGEA regulations were only going to apply to major corporations and not trickle down on the singular level. The Massachusetts prosecution has developed the first ever case against a Massachusetts resident that will use the authority of the UIGEA to place a whopping 36 counts of money laundering, racketeering, falsified tax returns and several other major charges against Todd Lyons for the operation of the allegedly illegal online casino betting company Sports Offshore.

Sports Offshore operates out of Antigua and also used a toll-free phone number out of Antigua to process bets for US residents, in particular residents of Massachusetts. Lyons has claimed that his business operated legally because it entirely operates offshore and out of the US jurisdiction. The Massachusetts prosecutors claim that this is entirely false and plan to nail Lyons on the fact that he illegally processed gambling transactions through US banks and sent the money offshore. He is also accused of falsely reporting his income to the US government – just one more charge added to the several others he is facing. The UIGEA makes it expressly and specifically illegal to process the transactions between US players and online casinos, and that is where Lyons will face the harshest penalties.

This is a landmark case, particularly since the UIGEA enforcement regulations have not yet passed into law but are scheduled to take effect on June 1, 2010. Once these online casino enforcement regulations are passed it is wholly expected that similar cases will be filed against other Americans who have been facilitating transactions with offshore companies.