Owners of vehicles in Maryland, USA have very unusual problem with their license plates, as the URL printed on the plate redirects to a Filipino online casino.

The URL, which is www.starspangled200.org, was supposed to be a splash page to commemorate the anniversary of the War of 1812, but now redirects to Fafa855, which is a Filipino online casino that claims to be the “Philippines’ best betting site”.

For context, vehicles registered in Maryland between 2012 and 2016 were issued a license plate that has the URL www.starspangled200.org and was designed by the War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission. The URL was originally owned by Star-Spangled 200, Inc., which was a nonprofit entity. There are around 768,000 license plates that have the said URL.

Based on data provided by Wayback Machine, the URL redirect to the said Filipino Online Casino first occurred sometime between August and December 2022, where the previous version of the site brought visitors to the homepage for the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, which runs throughout Maryland, Washington D.C., and Virginia.

While the Maryland Department of Transportation Director for Media Relations John Lazarou explained that “the website printed on the plates is now owned by the Motor Vehicle Administration”, they said that they are aware of the issue and they are working with their IT department to restore the URL to its original state.

“The MVA does not endorse the views or content on the current website using that URL,” Lazarou adds.