MADISON -- Attorney General James Doyle announced that his office has reached an agreement with an Internet gambling firm that calls for the dissolution of the company's Wisconsin corporation.
Doyle said that On-Line International, Inc., Milwaukee, was ordered dissolved by United States District Judge John C. Shabaz in a consent decree that was entered upon agreement of the parties. The court also barred the owners, officers and employees of On-Line and its parent corporation, World Wide Web Casinos, Inc., Santa Ana, California, from forming any new Wisconsin corporation for the purpose of operating an Internet gambling website.
According to the Department of Justice's complaint, On-Line was formed as a Wisconsin corporation in November, 1996, by World Wide Web Casinos to develop and distribute computer software to facilitate Internet gambling. On-Line planned to conduct business from a facility in Oak Creek. The complaint alleged that the announced purpose for On-Line's formation violated Wisconsin's criminal gambling statutes and its Oak Creek facility would be a public nuisance.
"This settlement is an important step to ensure that new businesses that incorporate under Wisconsin law engage in legal activities," Doyle said. "Commercial gambling is a crime in this state and our laws apply to the use of the Internet as well."
Doyle's office filed three lawsuits in September, 1997, against a number of individuals, groups and corporations trying to operate gambling sites on the Internet. The lawsuits were the first of their kind in Wisconsin and among the first such actions to be filed nationwide.
The lawsuit against Unistar Entertainment, Inc., Englewood, California, -- the company that operates the Coeur d'Alene Tribe's US Lottery - is pending in federal court.
Another lawsuit filed against Net Bet, Inc., and Torrey Pines Nevada, Inc., Las Vegas, Nevada, -- operators of Casinos of the South Pacific - and employees of both companies is pending in Dane County Circuit Court.
The consent decree was entered in federal district court in Madison.