Second Online Gambling Official Busted

Sportingbet, owner of a gambling Web site, said its chairman has been detained in the U.S., two months after the chief executive of BetOnSports PLC was arrested in the United States on racketeering charges.

The company said a hearing has been scheduled for Sportingbet Chairman Peter Dicks, though no further details were given. Sportingbet declined to specify where in the United States Dicks was being held.

Shares in the company were suspended by the London Stock Exchange at Sportingbet's request.

Dicks, 64, is the second executive of a U.K. Internet sports-betting company to be held in the United States. David Carruthers, former chief executive officer of BetOnSports PLC, was arrested in July at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The company fired Carruthers, who remains under house arrest in the St. Louis area awaiting trial, and closed its U.S. operations.

Dicks is the founder of Abingdon PLC, a private equity firm, and a director at Nasdaq-listed Polar Technology Trust PLC and Standard Microsystems Corp. He has been non-executive director at Sportingbet since 2000.

Separately, Sportingbet said it is in the early stage of talks about a possible recommended takeover of World Gaming PLC in an all-stock deal worth about $105.8 million.