Reports that CG Technology is to pay a $22.5 million U.S. penalty
News on 1 Oct 2016
News on 1 Oct 2016
Blasts from the past like the Michael Colbert scandal, messenger betting, money laundering and allegations of miscalculated payments to customers and state authorities (see previous reports) all surfaced again in a Wall Street Journal article Friday claiming that Cantor Fitzgerald gambling subsidiary CG Technology has agreed to pay $22.5 million in penalties and forfeitures to settle US government probes.
The Journal quotes unidentified sources who have revealed that the settlement will be announced by the Department of Justice next week, and that it relates to the company’s activities going back to 2009.
“As part of a non-prosecution agreement expected to be announced as soon as Monday, the gambling affiliate has admitted and accepted responsibility for aiding and abetting illegal gambling and money laundering activities from around 2009 through 2013, the people said. The Wall Street Journal first reported in 2013 that the investment bank’s gambling unit was being investigated by the Justice Department and other agencies,” the Journal notes.
The Journal’s sources said that CG Technology agreed to pay $16.5 million to resolve a criminal investigation that involved the U.S. attorneys’ offices in Brooklyn and Nevada as well as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit, the New York City Police Department and the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
It has also agreed to pay a multimillion-dollar penalty to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, they claimed.
The article records that Cantor Gaming grew quickly after setting up its first sports book, at the M Resort casino in Las Vegas in 2009, eventually becoming one of the largest sports-betting operators in the United States. In 2014 it changed its name to CG Technology.
The Journal also notes the recent (August 2016) resignation of CG Technology exec Lee Amaitis, a condition of a $1.5 million settlement between the company and the Nevada regulator in July.
The company admitted in that settlement that it hadn’t properly reported miscalculated payments to customers and state authorities, but it denied that there had been any intent to profit from the errors.
The Journal also recalls that in 2014 CGT agreed to pay $5.5 million under a settlement with Nevada gambling regulators to address allegations that the company or Amaitis knew that Michael Colbert was taking illegal bets. The settlement was among the highest gambling penalty levied by the state at the time. Despite paying the penalty CGT did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
