Nearly 800,000 Marylanders are driving around and unwittingly advertising the services of an online gambling site based in the Philippines.

At first glance, a website displayed at the bottom of every plate commemorating the bicentennial of the War of 1812 — www.starspangled200.org — doesn’t look out of place with the illustration of the flag over Fort McHenry.

Visit the link now, and it redirects to globeinternational.info, a site promoting online casinos in the Philippines, with a flashing ad for one, FAFA855, featuring a smiling woman urging visitors to “Register Now” and receive bonus money for signing up.

There are nearly 800,000 active Maryland license plates commemorating the War of 1812 bicentennial, according to a Motor Vehicle Administration spokesperson. The plates were designed by a commission in charge of planning the state’s commemoration of the 200-year anniversary of the war, a celebration that began in the summer of 2012 with a festival in Baltimore and continued through 2014.

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The domain did belong to the commission for several years, internet archives show, and was launched in 2010. It offered a history of the national anthem, a list of places to go to learn more about the war and histories of key players, each with a senior superlative, according to a snapshot on the Wayback Machine.

The site changed sometime between February and March of 2016, when a snapshot shows it redirects to the official site of the Maryland Office of Tourism.

According to its website, the commission’s authorization ended in 2015. In 2016, a nonprofit called Star-Spangled 200, which an MVA spokesperson said “led the efforts” to raise money for bicentennial events and was referenced on the site, was dissolved, business records show.

Then, sometime between August and December 2022, the domain was turned into a promotional tool for online casinos in the Philippines, archives show, though it is unclear what business created or runs the site or how it obtained a web address linked to a centuries-old war in the U.S.

The MVA said in a statement it is “working with the agency’s IT department to identify options to resolve the current issue,” and said it “does not endorse the views or content” on the gambling site.

cadence.quaranta@thebaltimorebanner.com

Cadence Quaranta

cadence.quaranta@thebaltimorebanner.com

Cadence Quaranta

Cadence Quaranta is a breaking news reporter with the Banner.

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