New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer, long known to be one of the online gambling industry’s most vocal opponents, has left his position.

His resignation came after it was revealed that Spitzer was involved in a prostitution ring that is under investigation in the state of New Jersey.

Spitzer’s actions were discovered after he attempted to transfer $10,000 in split transactions to a fraudulent company acting as a face for the Emperor’s Club VIP prostitution service. The bank reported the transactions to the FBI who examined the irregular transactions and traced Spitzer steps to time spent with a $1000-an-hour call girl in Washington DC’s Mayflower Hotel. 

As the Attorney General for New York, a post that he held for eight years, Spitzer fought tooth and nail against corporate crime, internet fraud, white collar crime and criminal rings, including prostitution rings… 

However, one of Spitzer’s main targets was the online poker and gambling industry and he regularly concentrated his efforts against banks that processed financial transactions between American gamblers and offshore gambling sites. In 2002, Spitzer threatened a number of top US banks with criminal action if they facilitated these transactions, leading the country’s top credit card issuer, Citibank, to reach an agreement with the Attorney General’s office regarding the issue. 

At the time, Spitzer seemed to gloat on the deal reached and said in a dramatic statement: “Americans now waste $4 billion a year on this pernicious form of gambling. With this agreement, we will cut off an unlimited line of credit that was a jackpot for illegal offshore casinos.” 

Spitzer was known for his backing of anti-gambling legislation, including the most controversial of all, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that was signed into law in 2006. In the same year, he ran for governor of New York with an action-plan to reform the state and induce more ethics into the population. After winning the title of governor, Spitzer declared: “We must transform our government so that it is as ethical and wise as all of New York, and we must rebuild our economy so that it is ready to compete on the global stage in the next century.”

Upon his resignation, which only came after intense pressure from many fronts, Spitzer said: “Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the Office of Governor."

Author:  Renee Kingsley