A man in Kansas City has pled guilty to operating a multi-million dollar online sports betting business, perhaps hoping to make a few bucks off the sure bet that the Royals stink out loud.
James J. Moretina, 61, ran the operation between March 2006 and March 2009, during which time his clients gambled more than $3.5 million. The business used two separate toll free numbers and websites routed through servers in Costa Rica.
The servers’ location brings some irony to the affair, as Moretina will be “rico” no more. His guilty plea means that he has to forfeit $6,000 in profits to the government in addition to being subjected to a maximum of five years behind bars and up to a $250,000 fine.
Moretina is just the latest person associated with the ring to plead guilty. Three co-defendants did so earlier, while three other men have already copped to separate charges of conducting an illegal gambling business. Three more men who pled guilty to being bookmakers bring the total number of men involved in the illegal site to ten, just one person shy of allowing them to channel their obvious love of sports (and their upcoming imprisonment) into a re-enactment of the Burt Reynolds classic “The Longest Yard.”
