Better Late Than Never
Richard Sullivan was indicted on RICO charges in 2010 for his role in a sports gambling ring tied to the website site Sports Offshore. Sullivan was arrested at JFK Airport on August 20, 2023.
The Bulletin Board
NEWS: Richard Sullivan was arrested in New York, 13 years after a RICO indictment for his role in running an offshore sports gambling ring.
NEWS: PredictIt scores a big win for US Election betting.
VIEWS: Former Louisiana Gaming Control Board chair throws cold water on online gambling prospects.
NEWS: Who are the 2024 online casino and online poker candidates?
AROUND the WATERCOOLER: Amazon and ESPN?
STRAY THOUGHTS: Much ado about nothing.
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Three Down; One To Go
Richard Sullivan, one of the principals of an offshore sports betting site operating out of Antigua aptly named Sports Offshore, was arrested at JFK Airport in New York on August 20.
In 2010, Sullivan and his coconspirators - Todd Lyons, Robert Eremian, and Daniel Eremian - have the dubious distinction of being the first people charged with violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).
The Massachusetts-based ring, headed by Robert and Daniel Eremian, was moved to Antigua in the late 1990s, according to the Justice Department. According to the DOJ, Eremian et al. “operated Sports Offshore, an internet site, and toll-free telephone line, to service his U.S. customers. EREMIAN allegedly employed dozens of “agents” in the United States who recruited customers and collected gambling debts, forwarding the proceeds to EREMIAN in Antigua.”
Lyons and Daniel Eremian were convicted in December 2011 and sentenced in June 2012, with Lyons receiving four years in prison, one year of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $24.6 million. Eremian received three years in prison, one year of supervised release, and was ordered to forfeit $7.7 million.
Sullivan is facing charges of racketeering, operating an illegal gambling business, and transmission of wagering information, per iGaming Business. Robert Eremian is still a fugitive.
The case was big news locally, as Daniel Eremian is the brother-in-law of former MA Rep. John Tierney, who was allegedly aware of the illegal business.
It will be interesting to see if the American Gaming Association and the legal betting industry use Sullivan’s recent arrest to raise awareness/interest about the offshore market - something the AGA and company have been sounding the alarm on for quite some time.
Election Betting Scores a Win
Election betting is a hotly debated topic, and one of two entities allowed to offer election odds, PredictIt scored a huge win at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans - albeit a 2-1 decision.
PredictIt was issued a no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2014, making it the second such no-action letter, along with the Iowa Electronic Markets run by the University of Iowa. That letter was revoked in August 2022, which led to the current legal case.
Legal Sports Report’s John Holden summarized the decision and the next steps:
On the PredictIt case, now we go back to waiting to find out what the CFTC is going to do. In the meantime, PredictIt will continue operating.
The CFTC could petition for a rehearing, or a rehearing en banc, or seek to go straight to the Supreme Court, though seemingly unlikely.
Holden also mentions the importance of a letter sent by a group of US senators about a no-action request from Kalshi to offer odds on which party will control Congress. Holden believes the response by the CFTC could play a factor in how the agency responds to the 5th Circuit’s decision.
Per the letter:
“The CFTC has never allowed a for-profit venture to operate a political event contract, nor has the agency permitted any entity to operate a political event contract of such scale. Establishing a large scale, for-profit political event betting market in the United States by approving Kalshi’s requested contracts, would profoundly undermine the sanctity and democratic value of elections. Introducing financial incentives into the elections process fundamentally changes the motivations behind each vote, potentially replacing political convictions with financial calculations.”
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Not So Fast Louisiana
Ronnie Jones, the former chairman of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, had some thoughts on last week’s Louisiana post, where I made the case for online gambling in the state:
“Steve--Interesting post, but don't ever expect Louisiana legislators to follow any logic whatsoever on making changes to existing gaming law, at least based on history. For a variety of reasons, legislators might not be inclined to give voters an opportunity to vote on the issue. Come next spring, the state will have a new governor (and, based on projections, one with very conservative inclinations), and there will be plenty of new faces in the increasingly Republican-leaning legislature. Moreover, never discount the oversized influence the video poker industry has in Louisiana's political arena. If they see online gambling as encroaching on their market, any such proposal will be DOA. It wouldn't be the first time the VP industry sides with the religious lobby at blocking any expansion. I'm not a betting guy, but if I were, I'd hold my money on this one.”
It’s always good to get these types of on-the-ground and in-the-know assessments of the landscape.
Top 10 Online Gambling Candidates
If not Louisiana, where should we focus our attention in 2024?
My current Top 10 online casino-poker candidate list looks like this:
Indiana
New Hampshire
Iowa
North Carolina
Maryland
New York
Illinois
Maine
Massachusetts
Colorado
I’ll save in-depth analysis for another time, but the 30,000-foot view shows these ten states in three distinct groups.
I expect Indiana, New Hampshire, and Iowa to make a legitimate run at legalization - actually pushing a bill across the finish line is a different matter.
North Carolina, Maryland, and New York will explore online gambling, but the stars must align for real progress.
Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, and Colorado sit on the periphery. Each has shown some baseline interest in online casinos, but they are still in the early stages and, barring some external force, are likely still a few years away from serious efforts.
The current state of legal online gambling in the US:
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Around the Watercooler
Social media conversations, rumors, and gossip.
This one didn’t come from social media, but it’s a pretty big rumor:
“Amazon has had early talks with Disney about working on the streaming version of ESPN it is developing, said people familiar with the matter. The tech giant could offer the service through one of its streaming offerings, helping to expand its distribution, while possibly also taking a minority stake in ESPN.”
This is a topic I will cover in a subsequent newsletter, but the response by @JamieSalsburg to the news that Iowa wants to “beef up” its KYC policies was too good not to share.
And as I put it:
Stray Thoughts
In August 2018, I penned an article titled, Legal Sports Betting Isn’t Going To Fundamentally Change US Sports. The genesis of this column was a rumor that Ted Leonsis was pushing for Arena Football League teams in Atlantic City because of legal sports betting.
At the time, I wrote, “Everyone, Leonsis included, needs to calm down and take a deep breath… There are people selling the idea that… fringe sports will become (more) popular because people can bet on them.” It’s nonsense.
Fast forward five years, and we have Pickleball. Yes, it’s a trendy activity that is growing in popularity, but let’s stop pretending this has any importance in the betting world. Is there a betting market for pickleball? I’m sure there is. Is that market anything more than a rounding error? I doubt it.
*Table Tennis is a strange outlier in Colorado, where it routinely accounts for 2% of the total betting handle.