2400 Dollars

 

This value always seems to be mentioned in scams trying to get you to give your money to on-line gambling sites.

Weird.

Gambling Scams

 

I've looked at the 57 gambling scam e-mails I got yesterday.

Most were from China. Or at least the domain names had .cn on the end.

Now would any sensible person gamble on a site based in that country? Obviously, they do! It beggars belief.

Some also pointed to primewinner.com. This domain has not been registered. perhaps I should register it and put up a page saying that you've been scammed.

But then if I want to gamble on the Internet, there are several legitimate companies based in the UK, who obey UK law and pay UK tax.

So surely one of the ways of cutting these scams would be for all countries to legalise on-line gambling and regulate it properly. But then the US doesn't believe in common sense.

Hong Kong and Spam - 2

 

I received an e-mail from the Hong Kong police, saying that they had noted my comment.

But also, the website I mentioned, www.koal.hk, is now no more.

So I suspect they are taking action, even if it wasn't my e-mail that started it.

Hong Kong and Spam

 

There was a suggestion here a few days ago that the Hong Kong Police have taken an interest in all the rubbish pointing to .hk web sites.

Believe it or not Hong Kong law enforcement wants to deal with this. Forward spams on to them enquiry@hkdnr.hk , crimeinformation@police.gov.hk , hkcert@hkcert.org

Yesterday, I only received 591 spam e-mails that pointed at .hk web sites and a much lower level of spam for a Sunday. But of these e-mails 482 pointed at www.koal.hk. This then points to an on-line gambling site.

So are the authorities in Hong Kong starting to get rid of the rubbish?

More and More Casinos

 

Over the last few weeks, there has been an explosion in Casino related spam.

First it was the Royal Euro Casino and now we have Vegas VIP Casino. You've guessed it they are same bunch of people, who aim to separate fools from their money. And they even have the same phone number in Antigua.

So that is one place I urge people not to visit.

Royal VIP and Eurocas

 

Royal VIP, the well-known on-line casino, is starting to use the address www.eurocas.net to publicise its services.

Could it be that Royal VIP has not been that successful, so they are hoping that a change of name will help?

I hope so!

DON'T EVER DEAL WITH THIS TYPE OF ON-LINE CASINO.

A Week of Royal VIP Casino Spam

 

I'm getting so fed up with this one, that I decided to analyse it all fully.

I searched the whole weeks spam and came up with revised totals for the week.

Sunday - 224
Monday - 337
Tuesday - 291
Wednesday - 0
Thursday - 105
Friday - 362
Saturday - 802

Total - 2121

I had a total 48530 messages spam messages in the week, so this Casino Group sent me just over 4.37% of all the rubbish I got.

Of these messages only 261 are actually addressed to valid e-mail addresses. So only 12 percent of messages are valid and the other 88 percent probably would get bounced, thus adding to the spam.

Is that intended by the spammers to create a pile of shit in which to hide real messages?

So who is sending out all of this rubbish?

The web site has an Antiguan phone number as it starts with 1-268. The first flag on the site is Russian and is that because the domain names used are all registered in that country.

SO DON'T EVER DEAL WITH THIS COMPANY!!!!

Royal VIP Casino in Antigua

 

Antigua is a nice place, but I won't be going, as the Royal VIP Casino or Royal Euro Casino is turning out to be one of the biggest polluters of the Internet with masses and masses of spam.

The casino may be perfectly legal in Antigua, but it is a pain in the arse.

If you take the last few days I've received the following numbers of e-mails inviting me to hand over my hard-earned money.

Saturday 10th February - 94
Sunday 11th February - 224
Monday 12th February - 337
Tuesday 13th February - 290
Wednesday 14th February - 0
Thursday 15th February - 105
Friday 16th February - 240

Did they forget to send them on Wednesday?

Update - On the 17th February I got 545 of the wretched things or a total of 1741 for Sunday to Saturday. This was just over 3.5% of the total number of spam messages I received in the week.

Euro VIP Casino

 

This is a typical net casino.

I have just received sixty-five emails from them this afternoon. As with most of the spam I get it was all to e-mail addresses that I never use. Except to collect spam!

So for a start it was a waste of time to send all those messages!

If you look at the registration for the domain, eu-vipcasino.net, you will see that it is registered in Tonga and the phone number for the registration starts with a country code of 7. Isn't that Russia?

So although they give you a signing on bonus of four hundred euros, I'd choose a much better-known name, if you want to do any on-line gambling. On second thoughts, I'd go down your local casino, racecourse, dog-track or betting shop. At least you see real people and know what they're doing.

On-Line Gambling in the US

 

So the US Senate has made it illegal for those in the US to use bank accounts and credit cards to gamble on-line. So what! In the twenties they made it illegal to drink alcohol and who benefited? The gangsters.

The Chinese have made it illegal to look at pornographic Internet sites like the BBC and Amnesty International. Do the Chinese look at them? Of course! They just use a proxy web site or some clever software.

So those in the US will continue to gamble on-line. They'll just have to use different methods.

For instance, people will setup bogus transactions to places like the UK, to transfer money to a trusted individual or company, who will then load the money into their account for a fee.

How for instance would you know that a PayPal transaction to me of a $1,000 for software services, was actually a payment for an on-line casino? I'd have no problem, as I'd just declare the payment and the corresponding outgoing one to the Inland Revenue as to what it really was. It's perfectly legal here. There might be a problem delivering significant winnings back to the US, but then I'm a cynic who doesn't think on-line casinos ever pay out.

So just like Canute couldn't stop the tides, the US authorities will not be able to stop on-line gambling. All they'll do is benefit offshore companies and crooks.

Internet Gambling

 

In the book, I said this about gambling and gaming.

This is becoming one of the largest and most important sections of the Internet. Just look at how many football teams are sponsored by on-line gambling companies!

Some of the sites are also some of the most pointless.

For instance, what sane person would spend hours playing fruit machines on the Internet. We all know that there can only be one winner.

But on the other hand, I do bet on horses using a betting exchange on the Internet. Here you can play punter or bookmaker as you want and you test your judgement against others.

We will see tremendous growth in Internet gambling and gaming over the next few years.

Some like the Americans will try and stop it, mainly to protect their own gambling industry in places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. They will fail!

Today saw an interesting news story with the arrest of David Carruthers, the CEO of BetOnSports, in Dallas.

This is only a minor skirmish in a war that the Americans will lose.

Large gambling markets will develop outside of the US, just as they are starting to develop in the UK, with the help of a friendly government. Remember that at present only a few percent of gambling is on-line. These companies will become very powerful and and good ones will be respected, offering bets on anything you like anywhere in the world. They will also develop interesting proxy methods so that anybody can gamble from anywhere in the world, just like the Chinese people have, so they can view pornographic web sites like the BBC, which their own government bans.

Suppose the Americans decided to prosecute any employee of an on-line gambling company, who set foot in the US. Or they tried to use the one-way fast-track process to extradite the NatWest 3. It would not be long before, America would be getting more hatred than it currently does now with Iraq, global warming, GM foods, the death penalty and lots of other issues, where it is on the different side of the fence to the rest of the world.

That would not change the minds of the American government.

However, the best casino brands names from Las Vegas, who would see their market shrinking fast, would make sure that mind was changed.

After all how long would some of the on-line gambling companies survive, if they had to compete directly with proven Las Vegas operators?