The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation unit has been cracking down on illegal sports gambling, even as the legal sports betting industry explodes in popularity.
Every fiscal year, IRS-CI opens over 30 illegal gambling cases, scoring a 92% conviction rate for prosecuted cases. Over the past five fiscal years, 96 defendants have been convicted of crimes tied to illegal gambling, getting jail sentences averaging between five and 33 months in federal prison.
In February, 10 men pleaded guilty to managing a multimillion-dollar sport betting operation named Red44 that ran online bookmaking and betting activities through an offshore server in Costa Rica.
