More Arrests for Israeli Online Casino Operators

December 18, 2009 | News Category: Gaming Law

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The Israeli police force has recently been focusing on illegal online gambling operations. Since gambling is illegal in Israel, gambling may not be offered to those living in the country.

Israel News reported that the most recent suspected illegal online gambling network was operated via the site internet1x2.com. After a long undercover investigation, the police conducted a raid on the operation, at which time five online gambling operators were arrested as suspects for operating an online gambling network that had offered online gambling services to Israelis.

It is suspected at this time that two brothers headed up the online gambling network, one of whom is living overseas at the moment, and the other in Tel Aviv. Others who seemed to be involved in the operating of the website were also detained. These people may have provided various support services, such as managing finance and payments, and providing technical support.

A number of other suspects, as well as gamblers themselves were detained by the National Police Investigations Unit. The Investigators Unit has been working closely with those from an Internet gambling task force from the Lahav 433 police unit. A hearing was held in the Magistrate’s Court in Rishon Lezion.

This recent incident follows not long after the Lahav 433 Internet gambling task force busted another Israeli gambling network in November. However, the two networks were operated quite differently, with the most recent bust following a far more sophisticated system than the November bust.

Those using the gambling offered by this illegal operation allowed credit card transactions, while the case that was uncovered in November involved messengers both collecting bets and handing out winnings in person.

It seems that the websites were being operated by a server that was located outside of Israel, in Eastern Europe. The sites were specifically aimed at Israeli Internet users, since it was set up in the Hebrew language. The online gambling website allowed gamblers to finance their gambling transactions via credit cards and bank transfers. The fact that the site was set up in Hebrew and that players used their credit cards to make bets, were signs showing that the websites were being operated illegally.

The gambling site offered various forms of betting, including online poker, live dealer casino games which were operated via webcams, and sportsbetting such as baseball, tennis, boxing, hockey, world soccer, and American football.