A common misconception in the US is that if you can hop onto a website and place a sports bet, it must be legal. Sadly, this is not the case. As legal sports betting continues to spread across the US, a new resource, the Bettor Safe Campaign, has become available to educate the public on the difference between illegal and legal betting websites.
A product of Conscious Gaming, Bettor Safe aims to help customers learn why to stay away from offshore betting.
But it might take a bit more than just education to prevent the general public from placing wagers on unlicensed, unregulated websites.
ADDITIONAL ALLIES COULD BE USEFUL
Education is indeed a necessary tool. However, according to Sharon Cohen Levin, a partner with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, there is one other component that could be a useful ally in the fight against the illegal market.
When asked what that something could be, without hesitation, Levin said, “law enforcement action.”
“These illegally operating sites can cause real harm to the consuming public, such as through fraud, and it would be welcomed if the government took action to shut them down.”
As a former federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Levin knows a thing or two about illegal websites. She led the Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit for two decades and was instrumental in action against online poker rooms deemed to be serving the US illegally.
