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Posted by: ian_go at September 27, 2006, 11:23 am

Topic: Sportingbet finance chief expects U.S. arrest warrant Forum: Winner Online

LONDON (Reuters) - Sportingbet's Finance Director Andy McIver is working on the assumption that the U.S. state of Louisiana has a warrant out for his arrest on online gambling charges, he said in an interview on Wednesday.

His comments follow the arrest of Sportingbet Chairman Peter Dicks at JFK airport in New York earlier this month on charges of "gambling by computer".

"I'm personally working on the assumption that it is a stronger possibility rather than a weaker possibility," McIver told Reuters by phone from London when asked whether he expected Louisiana to have a warrant out for his arrest.

Shares across the sector have taken a series of knocks since July as some U.S. politicians seek to ban Internet gambling there and as U.S. and European prosecutors also target executives from BETonSPORTS and Bwin.com.

In a separate announcement on Wednesday, British bookmaker William Hill said it had stopped its gaming business in the United States, pending clarification on the scope and enforceability of state and federal gaming laws.

UK gaming stocks have lost a combined 2.4 billion pounds in alue since the end of June as the industry continues to haemorrhage alue and lose executives.

"We have now formally said that no board member is to go to the United States following the arrest of Peter Dicks," said McIver, who is due to take over as Sportingbet's chief executive in October.

Dicks quit his job at Sportingbet earlier this month and is due to return to New York on September 28 for a hearing on his possible extradition to Louisiana.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Louisiana had issued three more arrest warrants for Sportingbet staff.

"They said all along that there are other people," said McIver. "They said all along that it is us as a company. Therefore I assumed that, as one of what is a handful of executive directors, I would be one of them. But I don't know."

Sportingbet shares fell by as much as 3.1 percent on Wednesday, but by 1400 GMT (3 p.m. British Time) they were down by just 1.4 percent at 176-3/4 pence, aluing the group at around 745 million pounds.

EXTRADITION OUTLOOK

Lawyers say U.S. prosecutors would not be able to extradite Sportingbet's executives from the UK because they have not been charged with anything illegal under British law.

Only by adding a crime such as fraud to the charge sheet would extradition be possible, they say.

McIver's comments follow a week of negative sentiment for the online gaming sector.

On Monday, Sportingbet's merger target World Gaming said its chairman and a director had resigned, and on Tuesday Empire Online told Reuters it was reining back its aggressive acquisition plans and considering safer options for its $250 million war chest.

On Tuesday, London's upmarket Ritz Hotel said it had closed its online gaming site due to legal uncertainty.

McIver said U.S. law on online gaming had not changed either at a federal level or at a state level in Louisiana, which has had anti-online gambling laws since 1997.

"Until something fundamentally changes -- some law goes through the Senate or if the courts take a different iew -- then maybe we'll rebalance strategy," he said. "We'd review the situation."

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