Online gaming operator Sportingbet said Tuesday that it is reviewing various opportunities in the U.S market following the completion of its third and final payment to the United States Department of Justice in accordance with the terms of its non-prosecution agreement.
Sportingbet confirmed that it has paid $6m to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, with a total sum of $33m now having been paid in accordance with the terms of the non-prosecution agreement which the company entered into on September 21st 2010.
“This final payment formally closes any risk which the company may have faced from its former activities in the US,” said Sportingbet chief executive Andrew McIver. “Given that the US market continues to show signs of regulating both by product, and by state in the near future, various opportunities exist to re-enter the US market and we are reviewing these.”
Sportingbet had previously admitted that it provided online gambling services in the United States between 1998 and 2006, and that it took steps to conceal the nature of credit card transactions.
The company said that beginning in 2001, it began using payment processing methods designed to misrepresent the nature of its customers’ gambling transactions to U.S credit card issuers that disallowed the use of their cards for internet gambling and that it also took steps to mask payments of winnings to U.S. customers.
The $33m settlement represented proceeds from the online gambling services that Sportingbet provided to U.S customers between 1998 and 2006.
Shares in Sportingbet plc (Co. Data) (LSE:SBT) have gained 1.28 per cent to 39.50 pence per share in early trading in London this morning.
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