PROTECTING PLAYERS · EXPOSING CRIMINALS · DEMANDING JUSTICE
Wednesday, September 2, 2026 · Independent Investigative Journalism
For decades, a variety of illegal online gambling syndicates based in Costa Rica and other countries have operated in plain sight — breaking the laws of the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, while being used to launder billions of dollars for terrorist designated cartels, and corrupting government officials in the countries where they are based out of — all while raking in profits that dwarf anything in the history of gambling related organized crime.
We are The Poker Police. And we are not going away.
Annual Revenue Extracted
$75B+
Estimated total yearly revenue extracted from players across all Costa Rican illegal gambling syndicates
Years Unchecked
20+
Of criminal operation — fully illegal under U.S., EU, and UK law — while law enforcement looked the other way
Players Affected
Millions
Of poker players worldwide have deposited money into these unregulated criminal platforms with zero legal protection
From the 1940s through the mid-1980s, the American Mafia's notorious "skim" of Las Vegas casinos was considered the most profitable illegal gambling operation in history. Adjusted for inflation, that four-decade operation is estimated to have generated somewhere between $2–4 billion in today's dollars.
The illegal Costa Rican online gambling syndicates that operate today — such as those run by operators like Phil Nagy and The Winning Poker Network — have eclipsed that figure many times over. These digital criminal enterprises have extracted more untaxed, unregulated, illegal revenue from American, European, and British citizens than the Mob ever did from Vegas — and they have done it with almost no arrests, no prosecutions, and no consequences.
America's Card Room
~14,000
avg. daily active players
14.5M
monthly website visits
Most registered accounts · Highest stakes
Bovada
~12,500
avg. daily active players
28.4M
monthly website visits
BetOnline.ag
~9,700
avg. daily active players
27.5M
monthly website visits
The Las Vegas mob operated hotels, paid (some) taxes, and had a physical presence. These operators hide in Costa Rica, answer to no government, pay no taxes in the jurisdictions they serve, and are protected by corrupt local officials. They are, by any measure, the most profitable illegal gambling organizations — digital or physical — in the history of the world.
We are an independent, research-driven watchdog organization with one mission: to expose illegal online gambling syndicates and protect players from criminal enterprises masquerading as legitimate poker websites.
Our in-house think-tank has dedicated thousands of hours investigating, documenting, and cross-referencing the illegal online gambling syndicates operating out of Costa Rica. This is not opinion — it is evidence-based analysis built over years of painstaking research.
Every poker player deserves to play on a fair, regulated, and legal platform. Our mission is to ensure that players worldwide understand the very real dangers of unregulated Costa Rican gambling sites — and that they have the information they need to stay safe.
We refuse to accept the corrupt status quo that has allowed billion-dollar criminal gambling empires to operate with total impunity for decades. Costa Rican officials have been bribed. Laws in the USA, EU, and UK have been broken. The poker community — and the world — deserves better.
We will not stop until the major CEOs — the criminal syndicate bosses hiding behind corporate facades — are unmasked, arrested, and extradited to face charges in a court of law. Awareness is step one. Justice is the finish line.
It is crucial to understand: there is no "grey area." There is a functional illegal space where these operators operate — similar to if a small old town in the middle of nowhere doesn't have an active police department, that doesn't mean murder, illegal gambling, or drug dealing is legal there. The "grey area" is a myth that does not legally exist.
We are here to support the USA in their war against these cartel-supporting illegal online gambling syndicates.
The Poker Police is coming for you, Phil Nagy. We will do everything in our power — we will unload our marketing budget, we will reach out to players, we will reach out to advocates, and we will start our campaign of reaching out to government organizations across the world.
We'll start with getting "El Chapo" / Phil Nagy arrested for running a multi-decade illegal online gambling syndicate — to make a point to other illegal gambling syndicates of the world, to let them know they can't break the laws of the world while hiding out in Costa Rica or Panama.
The CEOs and operators of these illegal gambling syndicates have for too long hidden their criminality behind the facade of legitimate-seeming business operations. They attend industry conferences. They give interviews. They pose as entrepreneurs, though the larger conventions such as the International Casinos Exhibition stays far away from these obvious criminals.
But strip away the suits, and what you find is organized crime — the same model, the same corruption, the same contempt for the law. They don't have licenses, and they don't pay taxes. There is a reason why they avoid regulation. These are criminal syndicate bosses. They are part of a black market laundering cartel money. They are bribing government officials. They are operating the largest illegal gambling enterprises in history, adjusted for inflation. This pink elephant has to be addressed.
We will not stop until every one of them is unmasked, arrested, and extradited to face justice in the United States, the European Union, or the United Kingdom.
Zero oversight from legitimate gaming authorities. You can't be sure if things are going to always be fair on these illegitimate poker websites. The smart thing to do is to avoid those sites entirely.
These poker websites violate laws in America, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. They are not trustworthy online poker rooms.
These sites completely disregard laws in the USA, the UK, and the EU. There are thousands of allegations of these websites being partially rigged and many reports of bots. Avoid any websites based in Costa Rica, formerly based in Costa Rica, or based out of Panama.
These unregulated platforms are documented vehicles for Mexican cartel money laundering. Your deposits enter the same financial ecosystem used by some of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations.
The U.S. government does not need a massive new agency to solve this problem. It needs five people, a search engine, and a court order.
Our recommendation is the establishment of a five-person federal unit — the Illegal Online Gambling Regulation Board (IOGRB) — with one primary, repeating function: search Google and other major search engines daily for terms like "online casinos that accept players from the USA."
Here is the key: these offshore operators have to advertise. If they don't tell American players they accept U.S. deposits, no American player will find them. That advertisement is also their evidence — and their downfall.
Once identified, U.S. courts can issue orders compelling domestic Internet Service Providers — Comcast, AT&T, Verizon — to block those sites' IP addresses.
60–70
Sites Shut Down
within the first month — over 50% of offshore illegal online casinos targeting America
95%+
Blocked Within Months
after sustained enforcement, with routine daily maintenance keeping new entrants blocked
$53.9B
Saved Annually
kept inside the American economy instead of vanishing to foreign criminal organizations
If that $53.9 billion is redirected to licensed American casinos, the federal government collects an estimated $21 billion in tax revenue annually. Factor in hospitality, employment, and increased domestic spending, and the total benefit to the American economy is even greater.
At a time of general fiscal imbalance, the last thing the United States needs is $53.9 billion a year silently leaving the economy — flowing to foreign criminal corporations with documented ties to terrorist-designated cartels.
Our research is ongoing. Our commitment is permanent. Explore the rest of this site to understand the full scope of what these criminal organizations have done — and what international law enforcement must do to stop them.
The Poker Police — Notifying The World Of Illegal/Unregulated Online Gambling Syndicates.