Offices of Sportingbet’s Taiwan promoter raided

Accompanied by two prosecutors, police at the Criminal Investigation Bureau confiscated computer equipment, accounting books and customers’ name lists at the Taipei and Taichung offices of Shijiwei Advertising Company.

But police failed to book the ad agency’s owner, surnamed Hung, who could have either gone to mainland China along with Sportingbet executives or escaped Taiwan before police took action. Police also raided the technology company that set up the Internet system for Shijiwei to allow a superlink with the computer systems of Sportingbet in London.

Police stressed that gambling is still outlawed in Taiwan and Shihjiwei must have split the income generated from the betting.

Although it remains a controversial issue concerning whether it is illegal to gamble on the Internet, prosecutors said, those running the electronic betting operations have violated regulations in the Criminal Code that penalize people who instigate others to commit crimes or make profits by gathering people to engage in gambling.

Among the items confiscated there were manuals instructing customers how to bet their money and posters claiming gambling may turn a person into a winner.

Prosecutors said people found guilty had been sentenced to jail for providing gambling services on the Internet in the past.

A Taipei prosecutor recently indicted Dai Chi-feng, who set up a Web site and joined a foreign company that operates casinoluxy.com. Dai helped transfer local gamblers to casinoluxy.com through a superlink and then took a cut of revenues generated.

Dai’s computer equipment was impounded because it was treated as “gambling tools.”

Police who joined the raids on Shijiwei yesterday said the search yielded evidence indicating that the company is Sportingbet’s partner in Taiwan and has attracted hundreds of millions of new Taiwan dollar wagers from local gamblers for Sportingbet.

In order to thwart competitors, executives of Shijiwei and promotional literature claim the company is the only Taiwan agent for Sportingbet.

The company got itself into trouble when it invited Sportingbet’s founder Mark Blandford and other executives to visit Taiwan to promote sports betting on the Internet.

In a speech in Taipei County the previous day, Blandford claimed that Internet betting is “a worldwide trend, “ as technological advances makes prohibition impossible to enforce. He further claimed that sports would be much less fun without betting.

Blandford also said that betting on sport can raise the government’s income through raising revenue.

However Minister of Interior Yu Cheng-hsien holds different views, vowing that his ministry will enforce the anti-gambling regulations to the full extent of the law.

Sources said that police had long been monitoring Shijiwei’s activities in Taiwan to see if the company is soliciting gamblers in Taiwan for Sportingbet, which would constitute a crime.

They only took action yesterday after gaining consent from prosecutors.

Meanwhile, Blandford left Taiwan for Shanghai to continue his trade-promotion trip in Asia.

Before leaving the island, Blandford said his company is not intending to set up a branch office in Taiwan or the mainland, in light of the fact that gambling is not legal in either place.

Once gambling is no longer prohibited, Blandford said, he might consider bringing National Basketball Association matches to Taiwan as a way of boosting betting here.

Taiwan was the third leg of Blandford’s Asia trip, which had already taken him to Singapore and Vietnam.

Some people are using the Sportingbet case to advocate the issuing of sports lottery tickets after the government officially launched the nationwide lotto tickets.

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