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Malaysia The Home Ministry in Malaysia believes that online gambling has become a problem, and they are leading the fight against the form of entertainment. Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein is taking his battle against online casinos worldwide.

“This operation will be led by me personally because this involves many agencies such as the police, Bank Negara, and embassies of other countries,” said Hishammudindin at a press conference in Parliament, “We are looking at tackling crime overall, and an operation like this can at once cover four or five issues.”

Some of the things that he is attempting to curb are illegal money laundering and organized crime. They are both areas of crime that have been linked with unregulated online gambling.

“Like many world leaders, including the US, countries believe that making online gambling illegal is a step towards less crime,” said observer Larry Trells, “but in reality, it is the countries where online casinos are legal and regulated where crime is at its lowest percentage.”

The police in Malaysia have already been hard at work cracking down on illegal gambling. Over 2,900 raids have been made between January and May, and those raids netted over 2,600 arrests.

Hishammuddin believes he needs the help of many leaders around the world to tackle the online gambling problem, but he may have a hard time finding allies. Many countries have been moving towards legalizing online casinos rather than outlawing them.

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The tiny Caribbean online gambling domicile of Antigua and Barbuda have been hit hard these past few months by allegations that Texas billionaire Allen Stanford ran a "massive Ponzi scheme" from that island nation.   Antigua’s top financial regulator has also been implicated.  As a result, Antigua and its Gaming Directorate remain on media lockdown.

"They won’t talk to anybody," said a reporter for Gambling911.com who attempted to visit their offices this week while in Antigua.

The situation has given the country a black eye.

Reports surfaced in early February 2009 that the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a major U.S. private-sector oversight body, were investigating Stanford’s company Stanford Financial Group, questioning the means by which Stanford International Bank manages consistently to make higher-than-market returns to its depositors. The FBI raided three of Stanford’s offices in Houston, Memphis, and Tupelo, Mississippi.  On February 27, 2009, the SEC amended its complaint to describe the alleged fraud as a "massive Ponzi scheme.  He was arrested by the FBI on June 18, 2009. Stanford ran one of the biggest banks in Antigua.

Leroy King, 63, the former head of Antigua’s financial services regulatory commission, was also charged for allegedly taking bribes from Stanford. He was subsequently fired from his post.

Antigua was one of the first nations to legalize, license and regulate online gaming.  In recent years, the island nation has been at odds with the United States over the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act, whereby the U.S. prohibits most forms of online gambling.  Antigua filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization. 

In 2007, a WTO panel found that the U.S. had failed to comply with its 2005 ruling that required it to either shut down remote gaming within in the United States or open its market to Antigua.

Since this time, Antigua has been in negotiations with the U.S. but it is unclear how the Stanford matter will impact future talks.

Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher