Fake Online Stores Reveal Gamblers' Shadow Banking System (reuters.com) 63
randomErr shares an exclusive report from Reuters: A network of dummy online stores offering household goods has been used as a front for internet gambling payments. The seven sites in Europe to sell items including fabric, DVD cases, and maps are fake outlets. The faux store fronts are a multinational system to disguise payments for the $40 billion global online gambling industry. Online gambling is illegal in many countries and some U.S. states. The dummy sites underline a strategy which regulators, card issuers and banks have yet to tackle head-on. The scheme found by Reuters involved websites which accepted payments for household items from a reporter but did not deliver any products. Instead, staff who answered helpdesk numbers on the sites said the outlets did not sell the product advertised, but that they were used to help process gambling payments, mostly for Americans.
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No, you'd need to pay extra. They slice down the length of the penis and invert it to create the cavity as this allows nerve endings to provide sensations when penetrated. A really small penis would need supplementing to assure adequate depth.
Re: Millennial version of this scam... (Score:1)
In other words, if you can afford it, just get the big dick surgery. Then become a pornstar. Make your dick pay for itself.
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Statement made to children: "Daddy has to go to work now, because he has a dick payment to make. If I have to pay for it, it has to earn it's keep. Think about it kids. Not about my dick. About how I have to pay for you."
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Trump's head is egg-shaped. Coincidence?
They do this in Japan (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember in the 90's seeing people ( in Japan) run out of pachinko halls with dozens of hello kitty pencils and trinkets, to a mysterious "door" front. You could not see who was behind the door. All you know, was these "hello kitty" items yielded some mucho yen.
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This is still done. The halls sell you trinkets for your pachinko balls, which you then sell to a vendor of a completely seperate business for a known price, minus a 1% take. Completely avoids the gambling laws in Japan, and unless someone makes a rukus, the government basically ignores the practice.
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In the Japanese case, they can get around the law because the "goods" do actually exist, although who knows how many times they've been recycled through the system by the time you win them as prizes. You are not gambling for cash, you are playing games for gimmicky prizes, so gambling laws do not apply, even though there is a store out back that trades in second hand gimmicky prizes for more than you might expect them to be worth.
In the online case, I strongly suspect there are no physical goods changing ha
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I'm pretty sure they have a way of tracking whether they came from the right place, and there are a few guys with missing fingers who can explain the penalties for trying to exploit the system.
Vice: perhaps normal life is too dull (Score:3)
No rational person imagines that gambling is without consequence for the addicted, yet the message sent by lawmakers is a mixed one at best.
I have a friend who can't kick cigarettes who wishes they were illegal. Where do we draw the line legislating to protect people from themselves?
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would your friend stop if they were illegal tomorrow?
I bet not.
I tried quitting no less than 5 times, across several years before I was finally successful about 5 years ago. Absolute *bitch* to kick.
Addiction is defined as: Continued use in the face of adverse consequences. If your friend is so much an addict as to wish they were illegal then the act of making them illegal likely won't be what gets him to finally quit. I do hope he manages to win one of these days though... it's a hell of a struggle to d
Re:Vice: perhaps normal life is too dull (Score:4, Insightful)
Not the OP here, but if they were illegal, I can imagine this would pose generally present a significantly greater inconvenience for him to get them, and it's not remotely inconceivable that the added inconvenience, coupled with the fact that he would also have to knowingly have to break the law to even get the cigarettes, might exceed the extents to which he is willing to go to satisfy his addiction. The result is that he might go a very long time without cigarettes, and discover that within a few months, he no longer even has any cravings for them.
Of course, some would likely still find ways around the system, illegally smuggling them into their area and taking sufficient measures to not get caught, but I would expect that the people who are smuggling them into a region where they are illegal are often not even addicted themselves, but are simply wanting to exploit other people's addction, selling them under the table at a profit to parties in their region, but this kind of activity happens "off the radar" and isn't something that a person who isn't actively trying to look for such sources of their addiction (and is quite willing to disregard the law in the process) is going to tend to know how to get. It's certainly not something that you're going to be able to find in your local yellow pages, at any rate... any would-be business or entrepreneurship that attempts to advertise their illegal activity so publicly would be shut down long before they could hope to turn a profit.
The reason people who use illegal drugs are often willing to resort to illegal measures to get them is because they *already* have a disregard for the law, or else they would not be using the illegal drug in the first place. Existing smokers, addicted to nicotine, which is legally available through cigarettes, do not necessarily have that disregard, so no assumptions about one's indifference to the legality of its availability can be made as it might otherwise apply to drugs that are illegal.
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They started anyways because they didn't believe that it would actually be hard to quit if it became problematic. This belief undergoes a radical shift once you actually start smokiing and then try to quit.
I know of nobody who ever started smoking thinking at they time that they know that later, they are going to be almost hopelessly addicted to having cigarettes, and wouldn't be able to quit later even if they wante
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They wouldn't go to jail.... they would just have to pay a fine. Much like speeding, in some respects, actually.
Well, first of all... not everyone smokes. In fact, not even a majority of people smoke. I believe the statistics in North America are currently that fewer than one in six people smoke... and t
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I do hope he manages to win one of these days though
Then you haven't kicked anything at all. Hoping for a win is exactly how this addiction works. I mean after all if you keep losing often enough you're BOUND to win eventually, right? Flawed logic.
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would your friend stop if they were illegal tomorrow?
I bet not.
I tried quitting no less than 5 times, across several years before I was finally successful about 5 years ago. Absolute *bitch* to kick.
Addiction is defined as: Continued use in the face of adverse consequences. If your friend is so much an addict as to wish they were illegal then the act of making them illegal likely won't be what gets him to finally quit. I do hope he manages to win one of these days though... it's a hell of a struggle to do.
Tell your friend to ask his physician about a prescription for Welbutrin. It kills the urge.
Your friend should also ignore his physician's advice to avoid nicotine gum while on Welbutrin. Because, hey, there are times when you are trying to quit, and some bitch of a situation comes up. Just one cig might make you feel better... NO. Break off 1/4 or 1/2 of a square of that nicotine gum to get you past the crisis.
Soon enough, when a crisis hits, your friend won't feel an urge to reach for a tobacco cigar
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Quitting tobacco is for life. The urges will eventually fade with the years, but do not be fooled by the, "Oh, just one puff" after 10 years off. The hooks will sink right back into your flesh, and you'll be smoking again.
Hell yeah that's true. I got nailed by that the time before I finally did quit. I had been tobacco free for about 2 years, then one drag and I was back for another three years before finally quitting for good. I had that "one time I'll be fine" delusion that I clearly was wrong about, so now it nothing ever again. Even if I'm around smokers for an extended period for days afterwards I can feel the tingle of desire.
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Don't try to read anything into it. The 'message' is as phony as a three dollar bill. The laws are simply revenue flow control.
Sweden is a paradise for this... (Score:5, Interesting)
...In sweden we have roughly 7.5 minutes of ads running on TV each 15th minute, 5 minutes of those are dedicated ads, and 2.5 minutes are self-ads (promos for TV shows + sponsors).
The point I am making here - is to point out just HOW lucrative Online gambling is - it's the internets next "porn" industry.
Let's say that there are 10 x 30 second ads during those 5 minutes of pure ads on Swedish tv - guess how many of them are ads for Online Casinos, betting and gambling sites? Half of them, and sometimes over. yes - thats at least 5 ads for Online Gambling each 15 minutes of TV space. And thats not counting the numerous "sponsored by this-and-that-betting".
A sure shot how lucrative this is - is how many TV stars and former Sports Champions gets paid to "endorse" the Online gambling.
Of course they have to have their entirely own Banking system!
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How long has that been going on? It might just be a bubble, before a bunch of those online casinos collapse as they realize it's not profitable enough. Remember the Apps bubble circa 2010, when everyone thought making a mobile app would make them an instant millionaire. Given that online casinos have been around for decades, I don't think they could be called "the next big thing," although I could see them being more popular than porn in a more sexually-liberated society.
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For a really long time. Ever since I came here, the ads of this kind has EXPLODED (literally). It's now to the point of public nuisance, people literally discuss online how annoying it is with all these gambling and casino ads. For me it's enough to make me turn off the TV because it's pure brainwashing. So it's pretty obvious it must be HUGE business, otherwise they wouldn't toss this kind of money into all that advertising. Even Swedens biggest online forum (kind of like a Swedish version of Reddit if you
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Real Money Trading (Score:2)
This reminds me of RMT, or 'Real Money Trading' in games like World of Warcraft, where people pay real money for virtual items. In particular, people purchasing ingame currency using real-world currency. These players would purchase an easily-found item sold by readily-available NPCs in infinite amounts, and then 'sell' that item to another character in exchange for a huge amount of ingame money that they had actually bought ahead of time outside of the game. I believe Runescape was the first online game to
Darn, I'm late! (Score:1)
Blew their cover pretty stupidly! (Score:2)
> staff who answered helpdesk numbers on the sites said the outlets did not sell the product advertised, but that they were used to help process gambling payments
"Nice job moron! You blew our cover!"
How do you not train your people on day 1 of the job at a money laundering outfit, that you don't admit to anyone that you're not a real shop. If anyone should call in complaining that they didn't get their goods (I'm assuming cops ordered items and called in to inquire about the order), apologize, say that i
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The article says (or implies) that they tell who they are so that when the gambler wonders why there is a charge from some fabric store on his card and contacts that vendor, he doesn't challenge the charge.
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The article says (or implies) that they tell who they are so that when the gambler wonders why there is a charge from some fabric store on his card and contacts that vendor, he doesn't challenge the charge.
Still seems like that should go out via the channels of the gambling site and not the help desk of the fake store. but I'm not a pro money launderer so maybe I'm missing something else. :D
They actually admitted their purpose? (Score:2)
You're not supposed to give away the fact that you're running a scam/front/laundering business. That's kinda Shady Business 101.
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And with this I prove your ass is busted. Thank you city council members for doing your civic duty in clearing an innocent person's name.
http://i.imgur.com/WF4xClT.png [imgur.com]
I'll be seeing you in court, Alexander P Kowalski.
Further proving APK is a lying sack of shit since his bitch ass showed up on Slashdot.
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