Areas of Expertise
3050 stories by Philip Conneller
Online Gambling Companies to Refund $1.2M Doctor Embezzled from UK Health Service
Several unnamed online gambling companies in the UK will repay more than £900,000 ($1.2 million) in public money stolen and gambled away by a rogue doctor from the country’s National Health Service. Senior general practitioner Dr Rumi Chhapia, 45, was sentenced last...
Dumped by Raiders, Damon Arnette Countersues Aria Valet Over Spitting Claim
Troubled NFL cornerback Damon Arnette is countersuing a valet at the Aria Resort & Casino. The valet accused him of inflicting mental stress, anguish, pain and suffering last May through alleged aggressive behavior at the casino. News of Arnette’s defensive legal maneuver...
Soccer Stars Wesley Sneijder, Dirk Kuyt in Illegal Gambling Scrape with Dutch Gangsters
Former Netherlands soccer internationals Wesley Sneijder and Dirk Kuyt have become embroiled in a case involving illegal gambling and a gangster known as "the Godfather of the Hague." According to Dutch newspaper De Telegraph, the two retired soccer stars have been interviewed...
Black Market Gambling Operators Use Trafficked Cambodia Workers, Says New Report
Three Cambodian workers are being held against their will in an illegal Chinese-owned casino in Sihanoukville, western Cambodia, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports. It’s the latest in a series of disturbing reports emanating from Cambodia about trafficking and workplace abuse centered around...
Prison for News Agency Employee Who Fiddled Racing Results to Win Bets
A former horse racing analyst at the UK’s national news agency was sentenced to ten months in prison Friday for tweaking results to better reflect his betting picks. Hull Crown Court heard that Jack Bentham, from East Yorkshire, fraudulently “manipulated race data...
Chinese Cops Bust Massive $250M Junket Funneling Gamblers to Tigre de Cristal, Russia
Chinese authorities say they have disrupted a “criminal gang” that operated an underground “industrial chain,” organizing trips for Chinese high rollers to Russia’s Tigre de Cristal casino. According to the public security departments of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, the capital involved in...
EPL Teams Probed Over Gambling Links on Kids’ Web Pages
BBC Sport reported this week that Seven English soccer teams, including the EPL’s Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, and Aston Villa, displayed direct links to betting sites on the children’s pages of their websites. The links contravened the UK Gambling Commission’s regulations...
Ex-Illinois State Rep. Luis Arroyo Changes Plea to Guilty in Sweepstakes Bribery Case
A former Illinois state representative has admitted to bribery charges related to his support of legislation beneficial to the state’s sweepstakes industry. Democrat Luis Arroyo, 67, pleaded guilty to bribery, wire fraud, and mail fraud during a telephone hearing before US District...
Not Rocket Science: NASA Employee Reveals How She Won $1M on Virginia Lottery
A senior NASA scientist has pulled off the ultimate moonshot, winning the Virginia Lottery for $1 million. Norma Farr, a group lead at NASA’s Geolab, matched five numbers in the Mega Millions draw over the weekend. The only number that eluded her...
US House Passes Bill Ratifying Catawba Tribe’s North Carolina Gaming Rights
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would enable the South Carolina-based Catawba Indian Nation to build a casino in North Carolina. The Catawba claim ancestral ties to the area around Kings Mountain, close to the South...