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

The company said yesterday that a number of individuals connected with Maslin Properties, Sportingbet's former marketing partner in the region, had also been detained along 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 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 America, where online gambling transactions have been banned and a number of executives, both British and American, have been arrested.

Two years ago, Peter Dicks, chairman of Sportingbet, 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, 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.

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