Oklahoma joins coalition to combat illegal offshore gaming

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is among those who penned a letter urging the U.S. DOJ to act on illegal offshore gaming. (PHOTO: oag.ok.gov).

OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond and 50 other attorneys general nationwide are asking the U.S. Department of Justice to address illegal offshore gaming.

A letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday referenced an unprecedented spike in illicit online gambling and the need to take steps to tackle it.

“The growth of illegal offshore gambling markets poses a threat to Oklahomans and to hardworking people across the country,” Drummond said. “These companies deserve to be brought to justice under the fullest extent of the law.”

Illegal online sports betting and gaming operations are largely operated by foreign-based companies that routinely operate without proper licensure, offer limited or nonexistent consumer protections, fail to effectively verify the age of users, ignore state boundaries, and evade tax obligations.

The letter specifically asserts that illegal gaming operations “expose users to fraudulent schemes and encourage problem gambling without any oversight or accountability; undercut state-regulated markets; and have been linked to money laundering, human trafficking, and other illegal conduct.”

According to the coalition, illegal online gaming is estimated to exceed $400 billion in annual volume, resulting in more than $4 billion in lost tax revenue for states.

The attorneys general are asking for federal help in deploying “robust legal tools and enforcement actions … especially as such actions by the DOJ have been extremely limited since 2013.”

Particularly, the coalition urged the DOJ to help curb illegal offshore gaming operations by:

• Pursuing injunctive relief under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act to block access to illegal websites and payment processing mechanisms related to illicit gaming operations;
• Seizing assets – including servers, websites, domains, and proceeds – used by gaming operators that violate state and federal law; and
• Coordinating with states, financial institutions, and payment processors to block unlawful transactions and dismantle financial infrastructure related to illegal gaming operations.

You can read the letter here.