Illegal gambling platform steals sports events broadcast signals by web crawling, involving infringement amount of TWD830 million

　The Telecommunications Investigation Corps of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (hereinafter the said “Corps”) cracked down an illegal betting platform which not only provided betting and wagering services on sports events but also stole the broadcast signals of domestic and international sports events with web crawling technology and provided free online streaming to gamblers.  The said Corps arrested 18 individuals, including an engineer surnamed Hong, for investigation.  The Chinese Professional Baseball League and relevant OTT service providers, such as, ELTA TV have filed infringement lawsuits against the 18 individuals.  This case involves the estimated damages exceeding TWD830 million.  

　According to the said Corps, this illegal betting platform operates differently from traditional online gambling operations.  In addition to offering various sports betting options, the platform also live-streams sports events and allows gamblers to watch games while placing additional bets in real-time (commonly known as “in-play betting”), forming a new type of gambling platform.  

　During the period between January 16, 2023 and May 7, 2024, the said Corps had tracked down the server rooms involved by analyzing the patterns of signal theft and using reverse tracking technology, and further conducted raids at two locations of server rooms in Beitun District, Taichung City, seizing over TWD210,000 in cash, computers, and other equipment.  The head of the criminal group, a man surnamed Wu, along with the aforesaid engineer, Hong, who was responsible for maintaining the system, were referred to the Taichung District Prosecutors Office for prosecutorial investigation on charges of operating illegal gambling business and violation of Copyright Act.  (Released 2024.05.31)  
/CCS