February 12, 2010 (CAP Newswire) – In Kansas City, federal authorities have charged a 26-year-old man with running an illegal Internet sports betting business. The man has pleaded guilty.
The charge comes from a long-running federal probe of illegal online gambling in that area, as the CAP News page has previously covered.
“In pleading guilty, Badalucco waived his right to have a grand jury review the government’s evidence and agreed to plead guilty immediately,” reports the Kansas City Star. That means that, unlike other such cases, pro-online gambling groups won’t have a chance to come to his rescue and turn this case into an appeals process for the campaign to legalize online gambling in the United States.
This marks the latest move in an increasingly aggressive government crackdown on online gambling via the Wire Act and the UIGEA, despite the six-month delay in the UIGEA’s implementation.