gambling

According to Decrypt, a 24-year-old man from Connecticut, Elmin Redzepagic, faces up to 375 years in prison for allegedly embezzling nearly $1 million in cryptocurrency investor funds to gamble on the Stake platform.Prosecutors accuse him of posing as a cryptocurrency investment expert working for a market master named "The Chef," promising clients high returns while actually using the funds for gambling. Last month, a federal grand jury indicted him on 21 counts, including 7 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of international money laundering, and 3 counts of making false statements to IRS criminal investigators.On Thursday, Redzepagic pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on a $500,000 bail.

Shenzhen IT man Li Dong (pseudonym) has been targeted by the police from Hunan and Henan provinces. A large amount of Bitcoin was found in his virtual currency wallet. The public security organs of Zhangjiajie City in Hunan and Changge City in Henan have both filed investigations against Li Dong, with the charge of "operating a casino." The Zhangjiajie police seized over 100 Bitcoins from Li Dong's account, converting them into more than 40 million yuan; the Henan police seized 80 Bitcoins from him, with a market value exceeding 40 million yuan.Later, Li Dong was not charged with "operating a casino." He was prosecuted by the Changge City People's Procuratorate in Henan for suspected theft and infringement of citizens' personal information. In January 2026, the case was publicly heard in the Changge City Court. After the court adjourned, it stated that a new hearing would be scheduled. Li Dong, born in the 1980s, is a network information security engineer, having studied information security in college. He has worked in network security technology for several well-known internet companies and later settled in Shenzhen, where he started and operated an internet company in recent years.According to his family, Li Dong began trading stocks and cryptocurrencies around 2016 and acquired some Bitcoins. However, the police later investigated and believed that the source of his Bitcoins was from another "channel." In September 2024, the Hunan Zhangjiajie Public Security Bureau summoned Li Dong on suspicion of "operating a casino." It turned out that in May of that year, the Zhangjiajie police launched an investigation into an online gambling case based on "anonymous reports," and Li Dong was listed as a suspect. The Zhangjiajie police seized 103 Bitcoins from Li Dong's digital wallet, converting them into over 49.61 million yuan. Soon after, Li Dong was released on bail. On the seizure decision and the bail release document, the charge against Li Dong changed from "operating a casino" to "illegally obtaining data from computer information systems."

Caixin reported in "After Many Twists and Turns, Southeast Asian Gambling Kingpin She Lunkai is Extradited Back to China | Past Events · Future Events" that the only partner of She Lunkai's blockchain project "Asia-Pacific New City" is the Singapore blockchain company BCB Innovation Ltd. The Fincy payment software based on BCB's blockchain is also promoted within Asia-Pacific New City, aiming to create a Southeast Asian version of WeChat. Fincy and BCB share the same parent company and similar shareholders, providing fiat and cryptocurrency exchange transactions, as well as online gaming.Industry insiders point out that by offering exchanges between fiat and cryptocurrency and online games, it effectively introduces many unrelated participants, breaking down large sums of money into smaller amounts, which ultimately converge into a gambling platform disguised as a game, significantly weakening the regulation of the flow of funds.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Connecticut from enforcing gambling laws against the prediction market platform Kalshi and ordered state regulators to refrain from taking any enforcement action while the court weighs the company's request for a preliminary injunction.U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden instructed state officials in a Monday order not to take enforcement action against any conduct described in the cease-and-desist letter until the court rules on Kalshi's motion for a preliminary injunction. The previous cease-and-desist letter was sent by the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection to Kalshi and Crypto.com last week, demanding that they stop what the state regulators called unlicensed online sports betting operations.Kalshi argues that, as a CFTC-designated contract market, it enjoys exclusive federal jurisdiction, while Connecticut claims that these contracts violate state gambling laws. The oral arguments for the preliminary injunction are scheduled for February 12, 2026.

According to Decrypt, a 39-year-old man from North Yorkshire, Jason Lowe, embezzled over £500,000 (approximately $659,500) of company funds during his employment, converting it into cryptocurrency for online gambling, and was ultimately sentenced to 33 months in prison.He transferred funds by forging payments to companies like Meteorbrand, and although his bank account showed unusual transactions, he falsely claimed the funds came from a personal business he sold in 2021. The company launched an internal investigation, leading to a crisis of trust among employees, and later, the police's economic crime unit tracked the flow of cryptocurrency, confirming his criminal activities.

According to Bloomberg, the prediction market platform Kalshi Inc. has recently faced a class-action lawsuit, accused of illegally operating a sports betting business without any state gambling licenses and misleading customers about its market-making activities. The lawsuit was filed by seven users of the Kalshi app, claiming that the company falsely asserted it offered "legal sports betting" services.The lawsuit also alleges that Kalshi's affiliated company, Kalshi Trading, acted as a market maker, setting unfavorable odds for customers, effectively making consumers bet against the "house." Kalshi, however, insists that it operates as a derivatives market, solely regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).This is the latest in a series of legal challenges facing Kalshi. Previously, a federal judge in Nevada ruled that the company should be subject to state regulation, stating that "event contracts based on the outcomes of sporting events do not fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the CFTC." Currently, at least five courts across the United States are handling disputes between prediction markets and state gambling regulations.

According to Decrypt, YouTube clarified that its new policy, effective November 17, will not impose a blanket ban on cryptocurrency content. Previously, YouTube announced an "expansion of the online gambling content ban, prohibiting directing viewers to websites offering 'additional items of monetary value,' including game skins, cosmetics, and NFTs," raising concerns within the crypto community.A YouTube spokesperson confirmed to Decrypt that "content showcasing creators earning video game skins or cosmetics in games, or general discussions about items with real-world monetary value (such as NFTs), will not be affected by this update." The policy specifically targets gambling websites, rather than legitimate crypto gaming experiences.

YouTube's support page shows that starting from November 17, the platform will expand its enforcement scope regarding "online gambling" related content, including digital items with monetary value (such as game skins, props, NFTs) under its control; content related to "social casinos" will be uniformly restricted to 18+; and there will be new age restrictions on game content that features realistic characters and prominently and continuously displays torture or large-scale violence against non-combatants. Previously uploaded videos that violate these rules but were uploaded before the aforementioned date will either be removed or age-restricted, but will not count as warnings.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain detective ZachXBT, New York social engineering scammer Christian Nieves (alias Daytwo/PawsOnHips) set up a small call center impersonating Coinbase customer service, guiding users to create Coinbase wallets containing controlled seeds on phishing websites, and has stolen over $4 million from users.His accomplice Paranoia (Justin) previously defrauded an elderly victim of $240,000 in November 2024, with part of the funds flowing into the Roobet platform and the rest converted to XMR. He publicly disclosed the Roobet account "pawsonhips" and leaked wallet addresses during a Discord call, showing that they are frequently used for online gambling.

ChainCatcher message, whale James Wynn tweeted that he is trying to exchange inflationary fiat currency for deflationary real money (BTC) with 40x leverage, but you all say I'm gambling. Time is of the essence, speed is crucial. The dollar is collapsing in real-time. I am doing everything I can to acquire as much BTC as possible so that I don't sink with the ship.

ChainCatcher message, according to reports from Wu, monitored by Etherscan, the Infini Team sent an on-chain message to Infini Exploiter 2: 0xfc...6e49, attaching court litigation documents via a link. The specific content is as follows:The plaintiff is Chou Christian-Long, the CEO of BP SG Investment Holding Limited, a Hong Kong registered company wholly owned by Infini Labs. The first defendant is Chen Shanxuan, who works remotely in Foshan, Guangdong, and the identities of the second to fourth defendants are temporarily unconfirmed.The plaintiff, along with BP Singapore, developed a smart contract for managing company and client funds, led by the first defendant. The contract was originally set up with multi-signature permissions to strictly control any fund transfers.When the contract went live on the mainnet, the first defendant allegedly retained "super admin" privileges but falsely claimed to other team members that he had "transferred" or "removed" that privilege.In late February 2025, the plaintiff discovered that approximately 49,516,662.977 USDC worth of crypto assets had been transferred to several unknown wallet addresses (controlled by the second to fourth defendants) without multi-signature approval.Fearing that the defendants or unidentified individuals would further transfer or launder the assets, the plaintiff applied to the court for:A "restraining order" against the first defendant and related unidentified individuals to restrict their transfer or disposal of the stolen assets;An order for the defendants or those actually controlling the relevant wallets to self-disclose their identities;Issuance of various mandatory orders prohibiting the disposal of assets to the first defendant and other unknown wallet holders;A request for the other party to disclose transaction and asset information;Permission for the plaintiff to "serve extraterritorially" (i.e., serve legal documents to foreign defendants) and alternative methods of service.In the body of one affidavit, the plaintiff stated: I recently learned that the first defendant has a serious gambling habit, which may have led him to incur substantial debts. I believe this prompted him to steal the assets involved in the case to alleviate his debts. The plaintiff also submitted screenshots of relevant message records to prove that the first defendant "may be in substantial debt."According to the affidavit, the first defendant borrowed funds from various sources in a relatively short period, even allegedly contacting "underground banks" or so-called "loan sharks," leading to pressure from high interest rates and debt collection calls.Exhibit "CCL-17" mentions that he sought help from others in a chat, stating that he was burdened with "interest from several lenders" and continuously asked if he could borrow more money to get through the difficulties or requested the other party to help introduce new funding sources.Shortly before the incident, the first defendant had revealed in work groups or private conversations with colleagues/friends that his financial situation was "very tight," even expressing anxiety that "if I can't get money again, something will happen."These statements almost coincide with the timing of the unauthorized transfer of the company's crypto assets, thereby reinforcing the plaintiff's judgment regarding the first defendant's "motive": possibly taking risks due to pressure from substantial debt.According to the plaintiff's statement, the first defendant repeatedly avoided or only gave vague answers when asked about personal finances or gambling issues, being unclear about how much debt he actually had or whether he was still gambling.The affidavit states that the first defendant pretended that "there was no big problem" from the end of October until the incident occurred, but the content he discussed in chat software with others was clearly contradictory to this.

ChainCatcher news, on the X platform, on-chain detective ZachXBT stated that the recently highly publicized "Hyperliquid 50x leverage whale" is actually a cybercriminal using stolen funds for gambling.When users asked ZachXBT to disclose the identity of the criminal, ZachXBT responded: "We are waiting and seeing; it's just no longer enjoyable to post investigation results on X/Twitter."Additionally, ZachXBT explicitly ruled out the possibility that the address is linked to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, CluCoin founder Austin Michael Taylor has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for telecommunications fraud and must pay $1.14 million in restitution.Taylor issued the CLU token on the BNB Chain in 2021, subsequently launching Goobers NFT, the Web3 game Gridlock, and the metaverse platform Xenia. In early 2023, he admitted to using investor funds for online gambling and embezzlement. The CLU token once reached a market value of $17 million, but is now only worth $54,000. The Goobers NFT had a peak floor price of 55.25 ETH, but the price has since plummeted.