WITH its former chief executive in jail awaiting trial and the FBI all over its business, one would have thought that things could not get any worse for Betonsports, the London-listed online gambling firm. And then they did.

Betonsports said last Friday that it will shut down its services for American gamblers — a move that surely spells the end for the company. Charged with racketeering and fraud, Betonsports plans to stop operating in Costa Rica and Antigua following a court order for the company to stop taking bets from the US.

Up to 800 people will lose their jobs.

Bets from US customers made up three-quarters of the company’s business.

The bookmaker is claiming that the move will allow it to build sales in Europe and Asia, to help it pay creditors. But analysts are less confident. Bookies would give long odds on Betonsports pulling through.

None of this should come as a surprise. Internet betting is illegal throughout the US — no matter what the online gaming firms would like to believe.

They have long sneered at the US laws on internet gaming, arguing they were unenforce-able. Few sneered as hard as David Carruthers.

Back in April, Carruthers, Betonsports’ now-jailed boss, went head-to-head with congressman Jim Leach in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Leach is heading a crackdown on internet gaming.

Offshore internet gambling sites, which target the US market and accept bets from Americans, operate in direct violation of US law. This is not theoretical or subject to interpretation.

When a site solicits and accepts wagers on sporting events and games of chance, it violates the Wire Act and the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, wrote Leach.

When consumers give their information to online gaming companies, they are by definition handing over their personal information to individuals engaged in criminal activity, he added.

Sports betting in America has long been dominated by organised crime. Law enforcers say it is often the No 1 money spinner for gangs, ahead of drugs and prostitution. So it is little wonder that the authorities are sensitive on this issue.

Carruthers was having none of it: “I run a multi-billion- dollar public company listed on the London Stock Exchange, and we operate with the highest standards of practice,” he wrote. Leach was relying on an “outdated, irrelevant law”.

He invited Leach to Costa Rica to check out Betonsports’ facilities and see how well run the operation was.

It’s a good job Leach didn’t take him up on the offer. As The Sunday Times recently revealed, these were the same offices Betonsports had shared with companies linked to mafia crime families.

The collapse of Betonsports has left many of its punters in limbo, wondering when or if they will get back the money they deposited with the firm. Then there are the company’s shareholders. With the US business closed, is there really any future for Betonsports? I wouldn’t bet on it.

But this will not be the end of the saga. The biggest question of all remains: why was this company allowed to float on the LSE? Carruthers’ proud boast about his London listing now looks especially hollow. Had anyone asked the Justice Department ahead of the flotation about the legal status of online sports betting in the US, they would have been told categorically it is illegal.

The company would no doubt like to pin this trouble on the mysterious Gary Kaplan — founder of Betonsports and a man with some very dodgy friends, by all accounts. But the Kaplan factor doesn’t get around the fact that Betonsports’ main business is regarded as a criminal enterprise by the FBI.

In fact it seems Kaplan, now in hiding, is the only one who took the law seriously.