Bryan Micon, owner of Seals with Clubs, has been charged by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office for operating an illegal bitcoin gambling site. A warrant for his arrest has already been issued last April.
According to defense attorney Richard Schonfeld, Micon will serve an as-yet-unspecified probation term and pay a fine of $25,000. Micon recently flew in from his hometown in Antigua to Nevada to answer the charges.
Illegal Bitcoin Gambling
Seals with Clubs has since been shut down due to the allegations. Micon also has to forfeit assets seized when Nevada Gaming Commission agents raided his home in February, property that includes $900 in cash, computer equipment, and bitcoin.
Seals with Clubs is an online poker website that experienced security problems in the past, having been the target of a database hack in December 2013, during which it lost 42,000 passwords.
“All player funds and data remain intact and the issue was not software related. We do not believe any of our bitcoin wallets used in operations to be compromised or lost. However, this event has made the majority vote of the ownership and team agree that shutting down operations is the best move for safety and security purposes,” as indicated in the website.
As it turns out, the bitcoin gambling site was already under close scrutiny by the Nevada authorities then. The website reported hardware failure through its Twitter account back in February before going on “extended downtime” by mid-month. Following this, Micon’s Las Vegas home was raided by authorities.
“I was handcuffed and lead out half naked onto my front lawn,” Micon narrated. “Over the next eight hours they stole most of my electronics, and of course this is seriously hindering to my output.”
According to Nevada officials, the site had been operating without the necessary licenses. Micon will have celebrity criminal defense attorney David Chesnoff as his legal counsel.
