An offshore gambling service is betting the state will look the other way while it rakes in millions of dollars in illegal Super Bowl wagers.
London-based SportingBet Plc. recently unveiled an outdoor ad campaign that proclaims, “Everybody Bets on the Super Bowl at Sportsbook.com.” The brash billboards appear most prominently in Times Square and at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
Along with hundreds of other offshore firms, SportingBet is aiming to grab its share of more than $1 billion being bet on next Sunday’s game via the Internet.
In 2002, when another U.K. site launched a similar campaign in the city, the state Attorney General’s Office urged billboard firms not to accept such ads. But state and federal authorities have done little to stop the continuing wave of advertising or the illegal online betting.
Online gambling is illegal in the United States. But laws here have been ineffective against the offshore industry. The Justice Department has successfully prosecuted just one online gambling case – four years ago.
Although the offshore gambling industry operates 2,100 Web sites through 300 companies licensed in more than 80 nations, it mostly caters to Americans. And the Super Bowl is its most sacred cash cow.
“About half the U.S. adult population wagers on the game – either legally or illegally,” said oddsmaker Danny Sheridan.
Sheridan estimates that illegal betting on the Super Bowl will top $7 billion this year, at least 20 percent of which will be placed through offshore sites.