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Does this mean that Britain will arrest their citizens and send them to the US if the US requests it?

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No - it means that journos just took the Reuters feed instead of looking at what the minister said. He was asked about extradition at the international conference on online gambling regulation and what he said was "People have to abide by the laws of particular countries," he said. "We will not acknowledge people who operate illegally."

He did not answer the question asked. What he said was that those registered in the UK would not be able to accept bets/deposits where those bets/deposits are illegal - ie the US. He did not say anything about extradition possibly as he is unlikely to know much about it being the Sports minister not the Attorney General.

To be extradited it has to be a crime in both jurisdictions. Nobody is going to be extradited from the UK for taking a bet from the US - and I'm prepared to put money on that with any US citizen who cares to test how sure I am.

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Well, it depends, I think, on how narrowly you are wording your bet. Will somebody be extradited from the UK solelyfor taking a bet from a US bettor? probably not, but the DOJ simply has to throw in a tax evasion charge, along with all the betting charges in order to be able to get extradition.

And here's the fun kicker, essentially, the US doesn't have to provide any evidence of the tax evasion to get the extradition.

Once on US soil, of course, the US can proceed with the taking illegal bets charges under the new federal gambling act (I forget the damn acronym)


Edit: Before the nits jump on me, technically, the US is not supposed to prosecute on any charges except the ones on which a suspect is extradited. It is not clear to me that the US abides by this rule, however.