From the Suburban New York, police have made arrests of 8 people who are believed to be associated with sports betting operations as detectives were in a crack down on mob-run gambling and loan-sharking.

This was a 10 month investigation that was labelled “Operation Rock Bottom” which focused on unauthorized high-interest street loans, as well as, off-shore gambling portals.

Investigators were in a position to put into custody unauthorized gambling records, more than $750,000 and computers through a search warrant issued to them in Rockland, Bergen County, New Jersey.

Arrested parties were charged with cases of receiving money for bets and putting people who borrowed money under pressure of interest rates of 25% to make payments. They were asked to make their payments weekly and bi-weekly.

4 of those who were arrested reside in Rockland. After the ring was announced, it was realized that it was also operational in Westchester County but no further details were availed.

This gambling website gave bettors usernames and passwords to use while placing bets on football, basketball and other sports events. The charges placed towards the arrested were for monitoring the betting activities taking place on the website and collecting money from losing bettors or winners who were paying out.

Who were Arrested?

Nicholas Farese; a 51-year old resident of Clearwater Court who was charged with promotion of gambling, having in possession of records to gambling and money laundering.

Ronald Ayes is another of the arrested parties residing in South Nyack and is seventy-one years of age. He was also charged with crimes of gambling promotion, money laundering, criminal usury and gambling related records possession.

Mark Moschells a 52 year old New Jersey resident was charged with money laundering crimes and a misdemeanour crime in gambling promotion.

Other people arrested were Vincenzo Reda, Peter Reda, Anthony Moschella, John Reyes and Richard Herman. All were charged with different degrees of money laundering, gambling records possession and promotion of gambling activities.

The investigations were a success due to the efforts of different departments which include the New York and Pennsylvania State Police, Prosecutors in Bergen and Florida and NYPD Asset Forfeiture Unit.

Sportradar and Europol are now in a joint venture. This partnership is aimed at protecting integrity in sporting in the continent. These two parties penned a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which acknowledged their collaboration and support to one another. This will also include trading of expertise, information, statistical data and trends that will relate to integrity to sports’ events.

The Europol Deputy Director; Wil Van Gemert pointed out that they need to work hand in hand in order to stop incidences like match fixing. He was grateful of their new collaboration with Sportradar and they plan to create difficulty in match fixtures and game manipulators to continue with their crimes.

CEO to Sportradar Carsten Koerl acknowledged on the efforts by Europol towards discussing and investigating issues that related to match-fixing. He pointed out on operations by Europol like VETO which involves teams of police from 13 European countries that were successful in identifying 425 individuals who were suspected of having 380 matches fixed in 15 countries. With this, it is evident that Europol is committed in getting rid of match fixing.

This move to sign the agreement shows how the two entities are dedicated at making sure that sports betting is safe and no manipulation is happening. Working together will strengthen their mission and will assist them in making more breakthroughs which will bring down those who undermine credibility of sports we are all interested in.

Sportradar grow their portfolio by bringing in a Tennis Channel

Sportradar made announcements that they have expanded their portfolio with a US pay TV tennis channel. The channel has right to telecast the US Open, Roland Garros, Australian open and Wimbledon among many more.

They have a 1-year aggrement were the Tennis Channel brings into action Sportradar Media Service’s XML feed for tennis on their portal. The XML feed brings in a wide array of data like the live scores, statistics and tournaments.

The Tennis Channel Vice President echoed his gratitude to being in business with Sportradar. He added that he hopes their fans will be treated with updated statistics and information.

Betsson AB is known to be one of the greatest sports betting sites in Europe. According to EGR magazine, it has been confirmed that Betsson AB pulled out of Netherlands market.

Betsson is the company behind Dutch focused online casino brands Oranje and Kroon. The company told Betsson that they ceased promotion in order to avoid any legal consequences in future as the market will be regulated soon.

Betsson told the media that they want to comply with the regulations and policies that are in the market. Betsson AB brands will not accept players or any bets from IP addresses from Netherlands.

The regulator to this market gave a warning to operators in 2014 that they did not acquire their licenses if they continued offer services to their customers prior to the market regulations that were planned. The Dutch regulator is known as Kansspelautoriteit (KSA).

Betsson AB’s withdrawal came after last week’s announcement by KSA that they were making strong the advertising code through an agreement to new advertising policies with media operators in the country.

There is a build up to new online gambling rules in the Netherlands and this has prompted a couple of betting operators in Europe to withdraw from the market so as to meet with the licensing standards of approval. Some of the operators who withdrew are 888 and William Hill.

About Betsson AB

Betsson believes that responsible gaming is a must. To make this possible, they offer a number os measures that guarantee safe gaming through self excluding activities training their staff and testing their platforms. This has made Betsson to be nominated as one of the most socially responsible gaming companies of the year by the IGA and EGR.

Betsson is working on improving their services as technology advances. They believe it is important to live as their customers do. Mobile gaming is currently at the centre of the gaming industry and betsson is keen to have all their products accessed from mobile platforms. This was noted after their customer base in the mobile platforms grew by 130% in 2014 compared to 2013.

This proves that Betsson are great at what they do and will always work at advancing their service for the better of the players.

More than $200,000 has been lost on sports betting and share trading scams in West Australia. Grant is a business owner in WA and fell victim of the scam last year when his business was not doing well.

He got in after receiving a call from a company that sold a trading program that they claimed would double his money in a year’s time. He spent $37,000 on this software and later realized that this was a scam.

What lured in the customers?

They promised to have the money doubled in the first year and if this was not done, they would have the principal amount refunded. They claimed that the software would advice you on the shares to buy and sell.

They made this business deal look foolproof since they promised their clients that all money would be refunded if no profits were made. This was one of the key features that lured more and more customers to the deal.

Another person that was duped was Cameron but for him it was on sports. His story starts when he filled an online survey which led to being contacted by a sports betting agency. The agency said that they would make him huge sums of money since they had professional punters who would place bets on his behalf.

Cameron part with $7,000 and was convinced that a given amount of his money would be used in paying professional bettors to watch these races and find the right horses to bet on. He was bought the story since he had not done betting before and thought that this would be an incredible way of making him money. Cameron pulled the pin after a couple of months on realizing that no profits were being made. He tried getting his money back without any success.

Customer protection warns of more and more scams

A statement made by the customer protection said that there are more and more scams on the rise. They advised people to be wary of the phone calls they receive and deals presented to them. People should look into independent entities for advice and not the sales people selling information that seem too sweet to be true.

All the guarantees that might be offered are all misrepresentations.