Turkey has become the latest no-go area for internet gambling operators after two employees of Sportingbet were detained by the Turkish authorities while on holiday in the country.

The company said today that a number of individuals connected with Maslin Properties, the company's former marketing partner in the region, had also been detained with some of their associates.

The two Sportingbet employees, described as middle management, were UK-based Turkish nationals returning home for a break over the bank holiday weekend.

Turkey is just the latest country to resort to arrests as governments with an ambivalent attitude to internet gambling clamp down on operators that refuse to stop targeting their citizens.

The biggest problem area has been the US where online gambling transactions have been banned and a number of executives, both British and American, have been arrested.

Two years ago, Peter Dicks, Sportingbet's chairman, was arrested in New York on internet gambling charges, although he was later released after George Pataki, the Governor of New York, refused to sign a warrant that would have allowed his extradition to Louisiana, where the arrest warrant was issued.

A month later, two directors of Bwin, the Austrian operator, were arrested in France, while last year Michael Carlton, the chief executive of Victor Chandler International, the online bookmaker, was briefly detained by the Israeli authorities. John Anderson, the former chief executive of 888 Holdings, was asked to attend an interview with the authorities in France.

The most recent case came last November when Petter Nylander, chief executive of Unibet, was detained by Dutch authorities after a French judge issued a warrant for his arrest on charges that he was running an illegal lottery, taking illegal bets on horse racing and illegal advertising.

In the latest case, Sportingbet said it had received no formal clarification of events from the Turkish authorities, and was unaware why its two employees had been detained.

The company said it continued to take bets from Turkish citizens as it believed it was not acting in contravention of the laws on gambling.

New laws introduced last year do not ban Turks from gambling over the internet but prohibit unauthorised operators from taking their money.

A Sportingbet insider said that, even though it is not authorised to take bets, it did not believe it had broken any laws because it does not have a presence on Turkish soil. Punters are able to gamble by logging on to its website, which is licensed in Alderney and supported by a call centre in Dublin.

Sportingbet, which bought out Maslin Properties for up to £21 million in March last year, said it had been gradually reducing its reliance on Turkey, which accounted for 14 per cent of its third-quarter net gaming revenues, down from about 25 per cent in the second quarter. It said the current figure was closer to 9 per cent.

Shares of Sportingbet fell 2.75p to 36p in afternoon trading.

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