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"If any of these companies had their office based in New York or London, it would be raided and everyone would face serious criminal charges. There is no gray area."
The Poker Police is a dedicated think-tank and public awareness group that has compiled thousands of hours of research into the world's largest illegal online gambling syndicates. Our goal is to keep players safe and to wake up the governments of the USA, the UK and the EU to recognizing these criminal institutions in Costa Rica, Panama, and other countries who make over a hundred billion a year in revenue, taking tens of billions away in tax revenue and draining such a large amount of money from the USA, the UK and the EU that it has become an actual economic hazard — because the money is entering a black market, which has also been used by cartels and terrorist organizations across the globe for money laundering.
There is also evidence of bribery to top government officials in Costa Rica and other countries where these syndicates operate, which we have seen evidence of in other investigations into Costa Rica's top tier officials. These illegal online gambling syndicates — based in Costa Rica, Panama, and other offshore jurisdictions — do not release real financial statements, and a single website has tens of thousands of players on a given day, which is more than what multiple Vegas casinos have on a given day.
Based on player volume, the true estimate of their revenue is staggering, and collectively puts their weekly revenue in the tens of millions, to hundreds of millions. This is becoming an economic problem, similar to the outflow of cash during the height of the Medallion Cartel's activities.
We are here to make sure criminals like Phil Nagy — who is the "El Chapo" of illegal gambling syndicates — and other illegal online gambling syndicate CEOs (crime bosses) have their day in court. We won't rest until this era of obscene disregard for the law ends, and these criminals are extradited to the USA on the clear charges of offering illegal gambling services and making billions in revenue on a yearly basis. There is no "Gray Area." There is a functional illegal space where these operators operate — but that doesn't change the implication of laws locally or federally, it never has, in any legal regard. How the gray area works — if there is a sign which says 150 miles of no gas sign on a road, that doesn't mean there are no laws in those small towns without police departments; you can't deal drugs or murder or open up a casino. That's not how the law works. As of now, if someone has an illegal online gambling website based in America, it would be raided and they would face decades in prison. All Costa Rican and Panamanian online gambling websites are illegitimate. Curacao, Malta and Isle of Man are legal base operations. All those locations make it illegal to offer gambling to the USA or the UK without being licensed in those regions. Anjouan is a bottom of the barrel location for licensing, very similar to Costa Rica and Panama, they are not legitimate, because they do not restrict or enforce as seriously, that's a matter of fact, the entire gaming industry knows it.
We will be direct about individuals like "Tony G" who has done aerobics around true regulated gaming, breaking laws of the USA and the UK with his nonsense "Coin Poker" site. Having Coin Poker around is like saying "A New York back alley warehouse casino is legal, because we use chips, and change it back to money after. We don't gamble with the money, we gamble with chips." That excuse won't work in court and that's all Coin Poker is. They are another step backwards towards the mythical "Gray Area", which doesn't exist. There is no Gray Area, operating in scattered areas, while also breaking the laws of the offshore location they are located from in general. Physical is digital today anyways. people walk into casinos they use chips. On coin poker instead of chips they use crypto then change it back to fiat. Alert to all poker players and general gamblers. Stay away from "America's Card Room", "Black Chip Poker", "Coin Poker", "Phenom Poker", "Bovada", "Ignition" and other illegal online casinos which break laws across the USA, the European Union and the United Kingdom.
From our research, the scale of these illegal gambling operations dwarfs anything seen in the history of conventional organized crime — and the world deserves to know the details.
Three pillars that define every investigation we publish and every action we take.
Thousands of hours of research dedicated to identifying and exposing illegal online gambling operations that put players at risk.
Waking up the governments of the USA, the UK, and the EU to the tens of billions in tax revenue being drained into criminal black markets every year.
We won't rest until operators of illegal gambling syndicates face extradition and criminal charges for their multi-billion dollar, multi-decade crimes.
The solution to stopping illegal offshore online gambling targeting the United States is straightforward, cost-effective, and could begin delivering results within days of implementation.
We are advocating for the U.S. government to create a small, dedicated five-person agency — the Illegal Online Gambling Regulation Board — with a single, repeating mission: search Google and other major search engines daily for online gambling websites that openly advertise accepting players from the United States.
This is the critical insight: these offshore operators must advertise to get American players. Without advertising that they accept U.S. deposits, no American player would find them. That public marketing is simultaneously their business model and their confession.
Once identified, U.S. courts issue orders to domestic ISPs — Comcast, AT&T, Verizon — to block those domains. The evidence is the operators' own advertisements.
Within the first month, the IOGRB could identify and have blocked 60 to 70 illegal offshore gambling websites — representing over 50% of all offshore online casinos actively targeting American players.
After a sustained enforcement period, over 95% of sites advertising to U.S. players will be blocked. From there, the unit transitions to routine daily maintenance.
Once the criminal industry understands it cannot reach American players, the $53.9 billion a year currently vanishing to offshore criminal organizations stays inside the American economy. If that spending is redirected to licensed domestic casinos, the federal government collects an estimated $21 billion in annual tax revenue.
At a time of fiscal imbalance, stopping $53.9 billion from leaving the country annually — to foreign criminal enterprises linked to terrorist-designated cartels — is not just a law enforcement priority. It is an economic imperative.
The illegal online gambling industry generates tens of billions annually — money that bypasses taxation, evades financial oversight, and flows into criminal networks including drug cartels.
We are committed to exposing these operations until every responsible government takes action and every perpetrator faces justice.
Billions drained annually from the USA, UK, and EU into unregulated black markets — a genuine economic and national security threat.
These are criminal operations. If their offices were in New York or London, they would be raided today. Geography does not change the law.