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Outgoing President Donald Trump has pardoned Casey Urlacher for his part in an offshore sports betting ring. The brother of former Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher was indicted back in February.
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He was one of 10 named defendants associated with Uncle Mick Sports. The offshore sports betting site was administered in Costa Rica and served US sports betting customers using an agent system.
According to the indictment, Urlacher set up accounts and helped move money between bettors and the site.
As a result, he faced two counts, each with a potential prison sentence of five years.
However, Urlacher has now been granted a full pardon by Trump. Brian Urlacher met with Trump at the White House in March 2020, according to media reports.
‘Devoted husband’
In a statement, the White House noted the pardon was supported by friends, family, and “countless members of his community”.
“Throughout his life, Mr. Urlacher has been committed to public service and has consistently given back to his community. Currently, Mr. Urlacher serves as the unpaid Mayor of Mettawa, Illinois. He is a devoted husband to his wife and a loving father to his 17-month old daughter.”
Billy Walters’ sentence commuted
Elsewhere, Trump also commuted the sentence of renowned sports bettor Billy Walters for insider trading charges.
Walters already served four years of his prison sentence and has paid $44 million in fines, forfeitures, and restitution.
The White House noted the commutation was supported by “numerous professional golfers” including Phil Mickelson and Butch Harmon.
In total, Trump pardoned 73 individuals and commuted the sentences of 70 more as one of his final acts in office.
The outgoing president hasn’t exactly supported the sports betting industry during his tenure, but there is some optimism Joe Bidenmay be more helpful.
Daily fantasy sports operators are essentially the new kids on the block when it comes to internet gaming. Unlike online poker, daily fantasy games—where people wager real money in contests based on individual player’s performance in sporting events—are being offered legally in most states in the US.
Make no mistake about it, daily fantasy sports is big business. Disney recently decided to invest $250 million into the number two operator in the industry, DraftKings, which expects the payout more than $1 billion in prizes in 2015, according to reports.
And though daily fantasy sites are legal, they are completely unregulated—a point that CEO of Americas Cardroom, Phil Nagy, chose to highlight in a recent blog post warning players of “The Potential Downfall of Daily Fantasy Sports.” In the post, Nagy points to the inevitable industry consolidation as a reason for players to be concerned about the safety of their balances on file with daily fantasy sports companies.
Some onlookers found it strange that someone that runs an unregulated offshore online poker site would point to the lack of regulation as a reason to be concerned about the safety of players’ funds.
This is an odd one – CEO of offshore online poker site ACR tells players to be wary of DFS sites: http://t.co/hFsDrPaTIP— Chris Grove (@OPReport) April 16, 2015
After all, players have lost tens of millions of dollars at offshore online poker sites such as Lock Poker, Absolute Poker and UB, and there are no reported incidences of players losing money due to the collapse of a daily fantasy sports site.
“DFS Sites are just as unregulated as offshore online poker sites, but just because they’re legal, doesn’t mean they’re safe,” Nagy told pokerfuse. “I think it’s concerning that these companies have openly admitted that they are not profitable, and yet players don’t seemed to be concerned for the safety of their funds.”
When asked why players should have confidence that their funds are safe at Americas Cardroom, Nagy replied, “I have worked hard to earn players’ trust. We have made good on every dime we owe since we opened in 2001.”
Nagy also made the point that the cheating scandals that rocked the online poker world were detected because of players’ ability to analyze hand histories—a form of transparency that is not as readily available in the daily fantasy sports industry. While players can access their opponents’ lineups on the websites of many fantasy sports operators, some contests have tens of thousands of entries, and neither FanDuel nor DraftKings offer players the ability to export their opponents’ lineups for off-line analysis.
Nagy emphasized that his concern is about companies that are spending more money than they are making and the potential black mark a failed site could have on the igaming industry.
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Interestingly enough, he does not have a problem with fantasy sports in general. In fact, he plans on adding fantasy sports games to his site’s offering. “First and foremost we are a poker site and our priorities reflect that, but we do plan on adding daily fantasy sports games at some point in the future.”