Olympic Sportsbook Is Free to Operate in Jamaica

Jamaica's Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission was forced to abandon its case against online betting company Olympic Sports Data Services, operator of Olympic Sportsbook (www.thegreek.com), and its managing director, Spiros Athanas, after its main witness failed to show up in court last week.

All eight charges against the company have been dropped, and it is free to continue operating its online gambling sites over the Internet.

Olympic Sports has been operating online gambling services from the Montego Bay Free Zone since 1996, when it obtained a license to operate a telemarketing agency. The company has since been operating with the belief that "telemarketing is broad enough to include betting and gaming so you need no further permission from the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission to do it," as one of its lawyers stated last year.

The commission disagreed, however, and for nearly two years pursued legal action to shut the company down for conducting an illegal Internet betting service without a license or other authorization.

The Jamaica Observer reports that the commission's case was based on a sting operation organized by Michael Surridge, the former head of the revenue of protection division of the finance ministry.

Surridge, however, for unknown reasons failed to appear in court and the prosecution was consequently unable to proceed with its case.

According to one of Olympic Sports' laywers, Clayton Morgan, "This case has come up in court 12 times, and at no time did the plaintiff's witness turn up. At Tuesday's hearing, only one police officer was present."