Update: Sports Alive Case Sees Aussie Gambling Regulator Cleared of Fault

Update: Sports Alive Case Sees Aussie Gambling Regulator Cleared of Fault
News came this week that the Australian Capital Territory's Ombudsman has cleared the state gambling regulator of fault for the major A$14 million collapse of online bookie Sports Alive four years ago. This ruling is no relief for punters who lost around A$3.8 million in the internet betting company's failure, as after a 20-month enquiry the Ombudsman decided that complaints against the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission will not be pursued and that directors of the now defunct online gambling house misled authorities about its true financial position. In March this year, Victoria Supreme Court decided to position the punters behind secured creditors for refunds of monies owed, but this latest ruling leaves the punters as unsecured creditors, unable to claim what belongs to them. Expressing players' disappointment with such a decision, Dennis Tuan-Mu, who has led the punters' protests, said: “This matter sat on the backburner for months with no notification to accountholders, and was hand-passed around until it went to a part-time officer. “The final reasons provided by the Ombudsman are brief, generic and provide no basis for how they reached their ultimate outcome. “They took the easy way out and simply blamed the Sports Alive directors for misleading the ACT GRC. “However, they failed to comment on how the ACT GRC didn't even perform basic and rudimentary checks of Sports Alive's multiple breaches at any time over eight years, any one of which would have alerted them to problems." The whole company shutdown is now under investigation of fraud squad detectives in Melbourne, where the betting agency conducted most of its business, and of corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).
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