Nothing lasts eternally; that goes doubly for web areas. You’ve received to resume that shit on the common. About 800,000 Maryland drivers and the Maryland Motor Automobile Administration are studying that lesson the arduous method, after discovering the web site on their commemorative license plates now results in a web based on line casino based mostly out of the Philippines.

The plates initially had been meant to recollect Maryland’s distinctive position within the Struggle of 1812. The plates had been submitted by the Struggle of 1812 Bicentennial Fee. The plates had been the default for Maryland residents beginning in 2010, and solely retired in 2016, in line with WBALTV.

The Fee began a nonprofit, Star-Spangled 200 Inc., and its web site handle was included alongside the underside of the plates. However as a substitute of studying about American historical past, guests are actually redirected to globalinternational.information—a janky, bare-bones playing web site within the Philippines.

Vice Information discovered the change over should have occurred someday within the final 12 months:

Someday inside the final 12 months, www.starspangled200.org stopped telling folks about how Marylander Francis Scott Key was impressed to put in writing the nationwide anthem “The Star Spangled Banner” after watching British ships bombard Fort McHenry in Baltimore throughout the Struggle of 1812 and began as a substitute redirecting to a web site known as globeinternational.information, wherein a blinking, bikini-clad lady advertises “Philippines Greatest Betting Website, Deposit 100 Obtain 250.”

[…]Area registration info exhibits that starspangled200.org has been re-registered and transferred a handful of instances inside the previous few years. It’s not precisely clear when it stopped being a web site about American historical past. The Web Archive exhibits that as just lately as December 2022, the web site defined that “the younger United States was embroiled within the Struggle of 1812 and the Chesapeake Bay area felt the brunt of it.” A snapshot from as we speak, nevertheless, explains that “Extraordinarily lenient legal guidelines govern gaming,” within the Philippines. “It is a results of the rising reputation of playing amongst vacationers and the big on line casino resorts which have just lately been constructed.”

The MVA is engaged on an answer for the issue, which impacts some 798,000 residents of the Free State. Additionally they want to make it clear the Automobile Administration has nothing to do with the playing web site.