Monday, September 25, 2006

BRITISH executives of online gambling companies could be arrested on
criminal charges in Germany if they set foot in the country. Officials from
the interior ministries of the German states of Hesse and Bavaria told The
Business that executives of foreign companies who let German residents place
sports bets online are committing "criminal" acts that could lead to
prosecution in Germany. Germany's threat to foreign managers follows the
recent arrests in the US and France of executives from offshore gambling
firms. French state gambling officials also plan to adopt a tougher stand:
officials told The Business that they will continue to report offences by
foreign betting operators to the government, raising the possibility of more
arrests of executives at offshore gambling firms. Attempting to enforce
their monopoly on sports gambling, Hesse, Bavaria and Saxony ordered
Austrian online betting company Bwin to stop advertising and offering
betting services in their states. The ban "goes for everyone else, too," a
spokesman for the Hesse interior ministry in Wiesbaden told The Business.
Bwin has become the highest profile target in the German crackdown on
gambling which has also seen the forced closure of privately run betting
shops around the country. But executives from any company offering online
sports betting in Germany should be concerned about prosecution.

"I would take these threats seriously," says Michael Adams from Hamburg
University, an expert on gambling in Germany. He advised such managers to
steer clear of the country. "I wouldn't take a layover in Frankfurt."

In France, Bwin's co-chief executives were released on bonds of E300,000
($370,000, £205,000) apiece last week after their arrests as part of an
investigation into the company's French operations. The executives are
expected to return to France for more questioning in November.

The arrests stemmed from complaints filed last year by French state-run
betting agencies Francaise des Jeux (FdJ) and and Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU).
Under French law, FdJ holds the monopoly for lotteries; PMU controls
off-track gambling and casinos for slot machines.