5Dimes Sportsbook to Close as Widow of Murdered Founder “Has Had Enough”

09:48
09 Feb

The famous 5Dimes sportsbook looks set to close its doors for good according to sources, with the widow of brutally-murdered founder, William Sean “5Dimes” Creighton, said to have had enough of the regulatory process...

The Costa Rica-based offshore sportsbook closed its doors to US customers in 2020 and paid $46.8million to the US government for a clean slate in a bid to go legit.

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Costly and stressful

However, this week owner Laura Varela is rumoured to have pulled plans for a sportsbetting licence in Ontario and is said to be “ill-prepared to spend any additional money on other aspects of the regulatory process.”

Reports that Varela is on the “verge of a nervous breakdown,” and planning on “shuttering the sportsbook ahead of Super Bowl Sunday,” could spell the end for the ground-breaking bookmaker.

5Dimes was founded back in 1996 by William Sean Creighton, one of the first-ever online bookmakers catering to a US market that had no legal alternatives.

Based out of Costa Rica, it carved itself a niche role, but one that flouted US law, in particular the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), often referred to as ‘the federal sports betting ban.’

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Kidnap and Murder

That law was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in May 2018, but before Creighton could even consider a possible return to the US, he was kidnapped and murdered.

“5DimesTony”, as US ex-pat Creighton was widely known, disappeared in September 2018, his car found crashed into a wall.

His Costa Rican wife, Laura Varela, reportedly paid a ransom of almost $1million in cryptocurrency but Creighton was suffocated to death after recognising one of the police officers involved in his kidnapping.

The ringleader of the kidnap gang, Morales Vega, skipped Costa Rica with his wife and mother, heading to Spain where authorities tracked him to Zaragoza.

The trio were arrested and deported back to Costa Rica and police searches uncovered documents relating to the ransom, including ‘details of the three e-wallets where the ransom money was transferred’.

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$46million Payback

With his sportsbook by this time under investigation by the US authorities, his widow Varela eventually made a deal that saw her pay $46.8million.

That sum was said to equal the amount of traceable transactions that violate US laws pertaining to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and the illegal transmission of gambling information.

This week, one insider source reportedly stated:

“5Dimes has already notified Ontario regulators of its decision to pull the plug.”

If true, it would spell the end of an era and an incredible story.