SportingBet Plc. has been at the heart of a recent U.S. online gambling crackdown following the arrest last month of CEO Peter Dicks, who has since returned home to London after unusual circumstances regarding New York law would not permit his extradition to Louisiana. Now that SportingBet is in somewhat of the clear, yesterday's news that the company sold their U.S. facing online casino and sportsbook operations for $1 to Jazette Enterprises Ltd. was not so much of a shock for the online gambling industry.

The disposal of these assets and shares will save SportingBet somewhere in the neighborhood of $27 million, amounting from severance and closure costs of approximately $14 million and discharged liabilities of $13.2 million. The terms of the disposal allow SportingBet to retain all rights to intellectual property and domain names of SportingBetUSA.com, Aces.com, and WallStreet.com, which will not be used for any online gambling purposes, as well as retain all non-U.S. customer accounts to be migrated into SportingBet's European online casino and sports betting operations.

Jazette Enterprises will not be permitted to take bets from non U.S. players for a period of two years as well as from players in the America's region for a time period of three years. In the meantime, Jazette intends to preserve the material structure of all U.S. facing operations, which employed approximately five-hundred. Also in the disposal agreement was a provision that would cancel the deal and give $.5 million to Jazette if the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was not signed into law by President Bush (which it was at 9 a.m. this morning, thus canceling out this provision).

As for SportingBet's other online gambling, casino and sports betting operations, these will cease taking monetary deposits from U.S. players effective today, Friday, October 13, 2006. Paradise Poker is one such property, and will now be chiefly marketed in Canada and Europe. Current U.S. account holders will have one month from today to gamble their existing deposits, after which time they too will be prevented from making further deposits. ParadisePoker.net, which serves as a breeding ground for new online poker players and allows unlimited free casino poker, will continue accepting players from all jurisdictions. SportingBet will now focus its efforts in developing multilingual and multi-currency offerings for Paradise Poker, which will serve to complement their European and Australian offering of online casino games and sports betting.