Maryland License Plate URL Now Directs To An International Gambling Website

Nothing lasts forever; that goes doubly for internet domains. You’ve got to renew that shit on the regular. About 800,000 Maryland drivers and the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration are learning that lesson the hard way, after discovering the website on their commemorative license plates now leads to an online casino based out of the Philippines.

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The plates originally were meant to remember Maryland’s unique role in the War of 1812. The plates were submitted by the War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission. The plates were the default for Maryland residents starting in 2010, and only retired in 2016, according to WBALTV.

The Commission started a nonprofit, Star-Spangled 200 Inc., and its website address was included along the bottom of the plates. But instead of learning about American history, visitors are now redirected to globalinternational.info—a janky, bare-bones gambling website in the Philippines.

Vice News found the switch over must have happened sometime in the last year:

Sometime within the last year, www.starspangled200.org stopped telling people about how Marylander Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the national anthem “The Star Spangled Banner” after watching British ships bombard Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812 and started instead redirecting to a site called globeinternational.info, in which a blinking, bikini-clad woman advertises “Philippines Best Betting Site, Deposit 100 Receive 250.”

[…]Domain registration information shows that starspangled200.org has been re-registered and transferred a handful of times within the last few years. It is not exactly clear when it stopped being a website about American history. The Internet Archive shows that as recently as December 2022, the website explained that “the young United States was embroiled in the War of 1812 and the Chesapeake Bay region felt the brunt of it.” A snapshot from today, however, explains that “Extremely lenient laws govern gaming,” in the Philippines. “This is a result of the growing popularity of gambling among tourists and the enormous casino resorts that have recently been built.”

The MVA is working on a solution for the problem, which affects some 798,000 residents of the Free State. They also would like to make it clear the Vehicle Administration has nothing to do with the gambling site.