BetonSports Founder's Brother Arrested in Florida

A suburban Boca Raton, FL man is one of 11 people facing racketeering charges in the operation of an offshore gambling Web site that handled $1 billion in sports wagers a year. Neil Scott Kaplan, 40, was being held in the Palm Beach County Jail on Tuesday.

An indictment unsealed Monday in St. Louis says Kaplan is the brother of Gary Stephen Kaplan, a former New York bookmaker who founded the BetOnSports Internet gambling site after being arrested on gambling charges in New York in 1993. Scott Kaplan worked for the sports betting operation and handled purchases of goods and services, among other things, according to the indictment.

After leaving New York, Gary Kaplan ran the betting operation in Aruba, Antigua and then Costa Rica. The indictment says he advertised the bookmaking operation as the "World's Largest Legal and Licensed Sportsbook" although prosecutors allege the wagering by U.S. residents is illegal. The indictment alleges that Kaplan failed to pay federal wagering taxes on more than $3.3 billion in wagers taken from the United States, and seeks forfeiture of $4.5 billion from Kaplan and his codefendants.

July 19, 2006
Posted By Tom Jones
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com    Previous Page | Internet Gambling | Top Online Casinos | Submit News!

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