Selling gambling software overseas leads to felony charges at home

Robert Stuart earned $2.3 million from licensing his software to overseas casinos and bookmakers, but he’s now facing criminal charges in New York, where authorities accuse him of promoting gambling within the state. Stuart maintains that his company only sells software to companies outside the US, and that he was never aware that it would be used to promote gambling in New York, noting that the program doesn’t actually place bets, but simply provides gambling companies with basic web-based infrastructure.

He also doesn’t know which companies he’s accused of aiding and abetting, but that hasn’t stopped prosecutors from charging him with one felony count, in what could set a dangerous precedent for other software makers who could be held responsible for how their products are used. “It’s overreaching where they’re going after a software developer who sells the software with a legal license,” Stuart told Wired. “And yet we’re still being prosecuted on how it’s being used.”