BETONSPORTS SAGA DOCUMENTED

17 August 2007

Hacksaw Hemingway spills the beans on the house that Kaplan built

It was only a matter of time before one of the many insiders involved with the now moribund BetonSports online gambling empire burst into print, but many thought that the still confined ex-CEO David Carruthers would be the author. Apparently this is not the case, as publicity has been launched on a new e-book titled "The Rise and Fall of Bet on Sports" written under the unlikely pseudonym of "Hacksaw Hemingway."

According to digital publisher Lulu.com which is handling the distribution of the e-book, Hacksaw's expose chronicles "An inside look at the online gaming industry with specific focus about BetOnSports.com through the eyes of a former executive consultant who shares details about sex, drugs, gambling, illicit activities, and good laughs. Read up on how the controlled madness of one of the original giants of the online gaming industry mixed in with a little bit of insanity and poor decisions led to the demise."

The publication is available at $19.99 in a 608 kb PDF format download from the Lulu.com website, which serves over a million registered users in 80 countries.

Judging by preview samples "The Rise and Fall of Bet on Sports" does nothing for the reputation of BoS, its Costa Rican jurisdiction or the Internet gambling industry as a whole.

In his capacity as a consultant, "Hacksaw's" job was to convince media executives that running advertisements for companies like BoS was not illegal.

"Most law makers had no idea offshore sports books even existed and laws were non-existent," he writes in a preview. "I made sure media executives were equipped with legal rulings to insure my clients could advertise in the United States and with no precedence I had to find cases which had relative interpretations.

"I did considerable research on the subject and introduced a 1998 Supreme Court Case in 2000 which interpreted correctly was favorable to the offshore gambling companies. The Supreme Court case was the New Orleans Broadcasters Association versus the United States and the key interpretation was the Central Hudson Test which states that if a company is legal and licensed in the location where the gambling takes place then the people of the United States have the right to hear about the business."

The author goes on to opine: "Unfortunately for the offshore/online gaming industry too many shady characters have used the internet and international borders to take bets and have basically stolen money from everyday people like you, your neighbor, and anyone else that understands how to use the internet or telephone.

"Furthermore ad agencies, production houses, national and global media companies have also been subject to some bad apples in the industry that didn’t feel the need to pay up for services rendered while hiding behind alias names thousands of miles away from their customers in a different country.

"One of the most corrupt bookmakers ever to come through the industry is Greg Champion. Greg or “G” as he prefers to be called, founded NASA Sports Book International which would be strongly branded in the media since 2001 as Betonsports.com with a bit of help from yours truly...."

BetonSports was a leading online gambling company operating in the US market from the safety (it thought) of Costa Rica. Over a year ago, its troubles began with the arrest of the CEO, David Carruthers, whilst he was on US soil in transit to Costa Rica from the UK. Carruthers remains under house arrest in St Louis awaiting trial with 11 others including BoS founder Gary Kaplan on a string of illegal gambling related charges handed down by a grand jury following investigations by the Department of Justice (see previous InfoPowa reports).

The arrests and subsequent acquiesence to US DoJ demands resulted in the company exiting the United States market which constituted its major income, crippling the company, leaving unpaid players and losing investors millions.

Online Casino News courtesy of InfoPowa