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Sportingbet's Tough Times

The Turkish online casino gambling industry is one of the more controversial areas of Turkish legislation because Turkey refuses to allow any sort of wide scale land and internet gambling activity. In fact, Turkey and Sportingbet made headlines back in 2008 when the Turkish authorities arrested several Sportingbet employees because of Sportingbet’s illegal focus on the internet gambling market in Turkey. That case was basically dropped last year with the Turkish High Criminal Court of the First Instance ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction over the matter; the legal action against the arrested individuals was dropped and the UK employees have since left Turkey. Now though, the Istanbul High Criminal Court announced that a brand new hearing has been scheduled in relation to Sportingbet’s involvement in the Turkish online casino gambling industry.

Some of the key issues cropping up as Sportingbet and Turkey battle over the online casino betting sites is the fact that Turkey is a part of the European Union and there is a strong movement right now in the EU toward enforcement of EU free trade policies even where internet gambling is concerned. According to the majority opinion in the EU right now (and the European Court of Justice has not officially ruled on this issue) the online casinos and internet betting sites legally licensed and operating in Europe have access to legalized betting markets in any other EU member state, even those operating state monopolies.

This Turkish case now marks the first time that Sportingbet will truly be tried in the courts and means the online casino betting company could face some harsh penalties. Of note though is the fact that the previously arrested individuals have no plans to return to Turkey for the trial and their lawyers note that it is incredibly unlikely that the UK will extradite them to Turkey for trial.