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Guilty Plea for Rennick

Douglas Rennick has accepted a plea agreement in the United States in a landmark case for the online casino gambling industry in the US. The UIGEA has been in place for more than three years at this point and the US Department of Justice has aggressively sought out legal action against a range of European gambling companies that continued to operate in the US market despite the UIGEA. Rennick though is one of the first individuals in the US to face sentencing for the processing of US payments with offshore online casinos. Rennick was arrested and faced incredibly stiff penalties for his payment processing business had he allowed the case to go to trial. Instead of risking massive jail time Rennick accepted a plea agreement with US prosecutors in exchange for being charged with a much lesser charge than the charges he faced.

Rennick’s plea agreement included his admission that his company used a Cyprus bank account to illegally transfer funds between offshore online casinos and US players. In order to process the transaction Rennick’s company submitted false statements to US banks concerning the nature of his Cyprus business. For this reason Rennick was able to fully collect and disburse payments from US gamblers for online casino gambling for roughly two years during the UIGEA bans. The US courts have erred on the side of caution over the past three years and agree with the US Department of Justice that only internet betting is legal according to the outdated but still used US Wire Act.

Rennick was facing a sentence of as much as 40 years in prison if he was found guilty in a trial for violating the UIGEA and processing payments for online casinos. Rather than face this lengthy sentence the US prosecutors offered Rennick the plea agreement and he is looking a just 6-12 months in jail for his crimes.