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I have posted on tikays thread but will start a new one so that it doesn't get lost in the current chest thumping.

http://www.lvrj.com/business/sports-book-director-for-cantor-gaming-arrested-175670521.html (http://www.lvrj.com/business/sports-book-director-for-cantor-gaming-arrested-175670521.html)

Cantor Gaming sports book director Mike Colbert was arrested Wednesday in Las Vegas by state gaming agents in connection with a warrant filed by the district attorney in Queens County, N.Y.

Gaming and legal sources confirmed the charges involve PinnacleSports.com, one of the largest offshore sports wagering websites. Sources said agents for the website were arrested in several cities Wednesday.

Astonishing, & scary.

What does it all mean though?

I am not really sure.  It looks like agents for the site that have been used to attract US customers have been arrested.  But just because it is currently just a US problem doesn't mean that there is no possibility it will affect others.

I guess it is at least worth posting, even if it is shown there is nothing to worry about. 

Is the site trading normally today for UK residents?

How did the Feds manage to take over the Pokerstars and Full Tilt websites back on Black Friday? (I assume they weren't hosted in the USA)

Why haven't they done the same to Pinnacle?

I can only assume that there is a degree of separation with Pinnacle - if agents are taking the US bets and feeding through to Pinnacle then Pinnacle might be able to legitimately claim they had no idea the bets were actually coming from the US? Pure speculation on my part.

Article about it all.

http://onlinepokerreport.com/5117/sports-betting-arrests-link-cantor-gaming-exec-to-pinnaclesports-com/

Interesting article - the last slightly offtopic bit about Penn Racecourse might involve exchanges.

Tony G just tweeted he tried to get some money out to no avail.

If you look at the advert on their homepage it states that they paid out more than betfair on last seasons premier league matches to a £10 level stake. Eh? Betfair is near as damn it a 100% book so surely that seems unviable unless I read it wrong.

Punters will learn to stick with UK Gambling Commission registered companies soon. Alderney licences won't be worth a jot if this lot shaft their punters like FTP.

somebody i really respect and who plays the us racing every night and has done for years has not touched penn national for ages

makes banded racing look like the derby

Pinny have a ~102.5% book.  Betfair have a ~105% book at 5% commission.

Of course every bet IS a winner in that advert. Clever ad really. How the hell do they pay their exes on 2.5% GP. Fair play to offshore boys I suppose.

Pinnacle make less than 1% of turnover and probably less than 0.5% of turnover but that turnover is huge.  When I say huge I mean figures that you cannot really conceive.  They are in the top five of Asian bookies now and I once worked for one of the top five Asian bookies that had a turnover in excess of $20bn a year.  Of course pinnacle are also the top US bookmaker and probably in the top ten by turnover for every other continent too.  They have a huge volume.

There is only so much I really want to say about these arrests but suffice to say a lot of the cogs that make the US market work seem to be involved and any cogs that make the US market work have links to pinnacle by the very definition of the market.  Some are merely bettors albeit very large bettors but others links with Pinnacle may be closer.  In terms of pinnacle themselves having done anything illegal I doubt it but that doesn't mean to say that it won't focus the attentions of the US on them.  Of more importance probably is the effect that what Cantor or Colbert alone have been doing.  From what i can see recently a LOT of the sharp action in the market is emanating from there but whether it is hedging or this guy giving out plays i don't know.  Irrespective if it is reaching offshore it is illegal so he is probably in trouble.  Ultimately of course none of this should be illegal and is just another example of the US government and attorneys office trying to generate a couple of quid for themselves by fining and arresting people for something which the government tax and shouldn't be illegal in the first place.  Ridiculous really

Does anyone know if you can access and bet on a UK pinny account while in the US?

Betfair you can't, but plenty of other bookies take bets while you are in the USA.

No - they won't accept a bet from a US IP address although that is obviously fairly easy to get around especially if the firm in question doesn't really care.  Some, like Stars as I found to my cost, do but others really don't seem to be bothered.

Latest on this is that apparently Pinny are named in the indictment so possibly very serious for them.

http://linemakers.sportingnews.com/sport/2012-10-25/mike-colbert-arrested-las-vegas-gambling-investigation-cantor-gaming-nypd-fbi

Interesting stuff.

Colbert sounds like a very naughty boy.

Nice one. Cheers.

interesting post in this thread

http://community.betfair.com/u.s._horse_racing/go/thread/view/94202/29457579/penn-racecourse-scandal#flvWelcomeHeader

.....This is NOT where the problem lies. It is not bettors that make their wagers through the teller windows at the venue that do this. It it those who have DIRECT access to the tote, something which the US authorities very rarely publicize because of the predictable fallout and outrage of the general betting public. The playing field is not level.

Those betting syndicates who have direct access to the tote can place and remove wagers (up to the off) at will. And typically the "cancelled" wagers are NOT removed all at once as the posters on here have suggested but rather in smaller tranches cleverly timed to coincide with the tote updates and money coming into the tote from various wagering hubs as time counts down to the off. It's all done automatically, with preprogrammed high frequency trading computers (similar to what you'd find front running the markets on the equity markets). These same folks are also the market makers on betting exchanges. It all ties together rather nicely for big fat profits.......

There seems to be a fair amount of confusion amount all of this.  Penn National owns the M but leases their Sportsbook in there to Cantor.  Other than that the two companies have no relationship.

I have seen the indictments and imo it is just a standard US DA office cashgrab which will sadly probably be successful.  At least three of the guys named as "bookmakers" have never taken a bet in their lives and are just big bettors, middlers and scalpers.  Of the three named as owners of Pinnacle at least one definitely has no shareholding and was just an agent.  It all very much reminds me of the case when Billy Walters got arrested and accused of running a huge bookmaking ring.  Ironically Stanley Tomchin who got arrested this week as one of the owners of Pinnacle was one of Billy Walters early partners and missed getting arrested in that sting becauase his wife didn't like the business and he walked away!!!!

I know that it is a bit off topic with the arrests, but interesting info about what goes on in US racing nonetheless.

The simple way to stop this is to stop cancelling of bets from 5 minutes before the off.

Well he certainly got fired......

http://www.lvrj.com/business/cantor-gaming-sports-book-director-makes-court-appearance-176287001.html

A) Is a UK account with average amount of ££ in 99%+ safe?

B) How come it took them this long to get into the UK market?

Should be OK, only the top part of it has gone wrong.


(http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o541/tikay2/Crane1.jpg)


(http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o541/tikay2/Crane2.jpg)

Hehe.

Nice one Tikay.

A) FFS they are regulated by the AGC - what could go wrong?

B) they were always open to UK customers, but AGC license (white list) has allowed them to actively market in the UK.

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