THE presence of the US Internal Revenue Service at the arrest of David Carruthers, the BetOnSports chief executive, as he got off a flight at Dallas Fort Worth airport suggests that the case may not be centred solely on the legality of online gambling in the US.

The news that he had been detained by federal authorities on Sunday evening sparked fears that it might herald a crackdown on US internet gambling.

However, FBI officials confirmed to The Times that agents from the IRS as well as the FBI were present, indicating an investigation into tax evasion as well as illegal betting.

Fort Worth airport police took Mr Carruthers into the holding cells beneath the arrivals terminal where he spent the night. Then at lunchtime yesterday he was handed over to the custody of the US Marshals Service.

It dispatched two officers to take him in handcuffs and shackles to the Fort Worth federal courthouse where he was scheduled to appear before a judge for a brief hearing at 2pm Dallas time. At some point between his arrest and the appearance in court Mr Carruthers would have suffered the indignity of the Federal booking procedure, an ordeal that involves a strip-search, the taking of mugshots and fingerprinting. The process would have been repeated by the US Marshals Service.

Mr Carruthers will reappear in court on Friday for a detention hearing.

Yesterday’s hearing only lasted ten minutes, with prosecutors declining to release details of a multi-count indictment against Mr Carruthers and several others. However, prosecutor Mark Nicholls told the court that they were accused of conspiring to offer bets on professional and college sports to US residents.

Wearing faded jeans and a lime green T-shirt emblazoned with the words “world traveler”, Mr Carruthers spoke only when the judge asked him if he understood the charges.

Until he is sent to Missouri to face trial, Mr Carruthers is expected to be housed in a cramped cell at the Seagoville Federal Correctional Centre near Dallas, according to a spokeswoman for the FBI Dallas office.

There, he will be obliged to wear an orange jump-suit and be forced to stay in his small cell for 23 hours a day. He will be allowed out to exercise for one hour a day under close guard.

If he is lucky, Mr Carruthers will have a cell to himself with a bed, a seatless toilet and a small sink. It is more probable, though, that he will have to share the tiny space with an inmate.

The potential significance of Mr Carruthers’s arrest can be gauged by the large number of rival internet gambling operators that have contacted BetOnSports for further information on the circumstances surrounding his arrest.

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