Gary Kaplan of BetOnSports online gambling site gets over 4 years sentence

 Gary Kaplan, a founder of the defunct British online offshore gambling firm BetOnSports, was sentenced to the maximum term of 51 months г prison for conspiring to violate U.S. racketeering and other laws, the Justice Department reported this week.

50 year old Kaplan pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year and as part of the agreement he was forfeited of about $44 million which the U.S. government described as proceeds from his criminal activity. He has been incarcerated since March 2007 and the judge in the case in St. Louis could have given him a sentence from 41 to 51 months in prison.

"Kaplan's business model itself was built on a wager that the U.S. could not and would not enforce its anti-sports book laws to reach Kaplan," Michael Reap, the acting U.S. attorney in St. Louis, said in a statement. "Today, Kaplan lost that wager."

BetOnSports ceased operations in 2006, and customers lost between $7 million and $20 million, the Justice Department has said.