In a stark warning to online gambling entrepreneurs, BetOnSports founder Gary Kaplan has been jailed for four years and ordered to forfeit more than £26m in illicit earnings.
Kaplan set up gambling business BetOnSports in 1995 and floated it on the London Stock Exchange just under a decade later, netting him more than £61m.
His crime? Encouraging American gamblers to place bets online, an illegal practice in the States. Kaplan admitted setting up offshore businesses in Antigua, Costa Rica and the Caribbean island of Aruba, to provide gambling for US residents through the internet and toll-free telephone numbers.
An article in The Times once referred to Kaplan as a “genuinely frightening” character: “Often surrounded by a phalanx of bodyguards, he sometimes goes by the name Greg Champion, or simply ‘G’. He is said to carry a gun at all times and once shot a computer after losing a bet.”
Kaplan won’t be allowed to launch or run a business again without the permission of the probation office.