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The strength and resilience of the offshore sports-betting market remains a major issue for the U.S.' regulated gaming industry that so far has unsuccessfully lobbied federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on illegal websites.
Despite the widespread legalization of sports betting in the United States, well-known offshore sites, such as BetOnline, Bovada, MyBookie and others, continue to attract billions of dollars in wagers from U.S. gamblers.
“They haven’t gone away; they’re not going away,” Bill Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association (AGA), told Vixio GamblingCompliance.
“There hasn’t been a particularly strong response at the federal level at [the U.S. Department of Justice] or FBI to go and create another Black Friday and shut down a bunch of these sites,” Miller said.
Fourteen years has almost passed since the DOJ on Friday April 15, 2011 indicted 11 company executives and seized the websites of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker that had been allowing Americans to play real-money poker in violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Acy (UIGEA) of 2006.
Miller stressed that urging federal law enforcement agencies to once again crack down on offshore sports betting and iGaming sites was a priority in 2025.
“That’s on us to press the government at the federal level to do that enforcement work,” Miller told Vixio. “We’ve grown a bit, [from] an industry in one state in America to now 39 and that industry deserves the same protection that any other legal industry in America has.
“It should be free from unfair, illegal competition, and that’s part of law enforcement’s job,” he added.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting in May 2018, sports betting has become regulated and is live in 38 states and the District of Columbia. Voters in Missouri also approved a ballot initiative in November legalizing wagering on games, but sports betting has yet to launch.
On the state level, a campaign to shutter access to major offshore sites has been led by the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB), which last year issued the first of a series of a cease-and-desist orders by state regulators sent to Harp Media B.V., operator of Bovada.com and Bovada.lv.
Since then, access to Bovada has been restricted to residents in 16 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
In an interview with Vixio, Miller agreed there were some successes in going after illegal operators, but more could be done to make it difficult for these companies to access the U.S. market.
“We've now gotten [state] attorneys general, and we've gotten cease-and-desist letters that have been favorably responded to by Bovada specifically,” he said. “But we need more prioritization from law enforcement, both at the state level and importantly, at the federal level.”
In April 2022, Miller sent a letter to outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on the Justice Department to crack down on illegal online sportsbooks and casinos, as well as unregulated “skill-game” machines.
But he never received a definitive response to his proposals.
Miller urged the Justice Department to investigate and indict “the largest offshore operations, such as Bovada, MyBookie and BetOnline, that openly violate federal and state laws.” He also called for the continuing education of consumers on the legal gaming options and the dangers associated with illegal operations.
“I think that there was a letter that I sent to Merrick Garland,” Miller said. “I don't know where it is, but you know, somewhere on the floor in his office.”
Miller said he was hopeful the gaming industry’s effort to crack down on the offshore market will have “somewhat better receptivity” should Pam Bondi, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Bondi is a corporate lobbyist and the former two-term state attorney general of Florida. The Seminole Tribe of Florida owns the Hard Rock brand and operates four casinos in the state, as well as retail and mobile sports betting.
When asked if he planned on meeting with Bondi if confirmed, Miller was confident she would take the time to listen to the gaming industry’s concerns and support its efforts in combating illegal gambling.
“Certainly, she knows the Hard Rock people quite well,” Miller said. “I'm quite hopeful because … Florida has been one of the more aggressive states on cracking down on these machines and internet cafes.”
While supposedly skill-based gaming machines have been seized by law enforcement and cease-and-desist letters have been sent to offshore sites, technology providers and payment companies that support their operations have not yet come under similar scrutiny by gaming regulators.
Miller said the AGA conducts “whiteboard exercises” to figure out how to get a specific company to stop operating in the U.S.
“You ultimately get to a number of different points,” Miller explained. “One of them is, okay, there's the actual site. Where are they located? Okay, that's hard to serve subpoenas there. Or … we can send a cease-and-desist, and we'll see what happens.”
For those operators that do not respond favorably, Miller said, there are other options.
“Well, who do they use as their payment providers? Do those payment providers work with people that are legal, regulated businesses in a similar space, and can we get those individuals to put pressure on them?
“We’ve been doing that due diligence,” Miller added.
Miller said online platforms, such as Facebook and Google, which are facilitating unregulated gambling are also problematic. He confirmed that the AGA has had conversations with social media and search companies.
“Those are the conversations we continue to have,” Miller added. “We’ve never had one of these conversations where those groups didn’t come away saying, ‘You have a really important point here. We don’t want to be in the business of facilitating illegal transactions’.”
However, Miller said, it is sometimes difficult for companies in Silicon Valley or elsewhere to make a specific determination of what is legal or illegal what it comes to gaming.
“So, it becomes a whack-a-mole exercise for them,” Miller said. “I think we can continue to put pressure on it.”
