Back in September, we reported on the UK’s case against Craig “NepentheZ” Douglas and Dylan Rigby, the YouTubers charged under the Gambling Act with running an illegal gambling enterprise using FIFA’s in-game currency. Douglas had been further charged with promoting gambling to minors. At the time, the duo had maintained innocent, but now, the BBC reports, both have entered pleas of guilty to their assortment of charges. Neither has been sentenced.
The BBC is calling it “the first time the UK’s gambling commission has prosecuted people for running an unlicensed gambling website connected to a video game.”
This is a separate case from the one launched in Texas last fall, under which the FBI alleged that a different group of miscreants had developed hacking tools to spoof FIFA matches and rope in millions of dollars in FIFA coins, which they dopily made no attempt to hide.
Gambling has been a hot topic for the MMO genre in particular over the last few months; check out MOP’s Andrew Ross’ take on the topic from a few weeks ago.
