Two Online Poker Domains Reactivated.

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Two Online Poker Domains Reactivated.
ESPN.com news services


NEW YORK -- Federal prosecutors say they expect Internet poker companies whose employees are being prosecuted to return money to players, and they're reactivating two domain names to make it easier for that to happen.
The government announced Wednesday that it has reached agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. It will restore the companies' domain names so they can return money to U.S. players.
The companies were named in a civil money-laundering and forfeiture complaint last week.
Authorities have announced criminal charges against 11 individuals, including employees of those companies and one other.
So far, three of the 11 have been arrested. All are free on bail.
In a statement issued Tuesday regarding the case, ESPN said: "We are aware of the indictment only through what has been announced publicly. For the immediate future, we are making efforts to remove related advertising and programming pending further review."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
 
slyone66

slyone66

EOG Master
Re: Two Online Poker Domains Reactivated.

heres an email i got today from Poker Forum
 Online poker players: your deposited money isn't lost

By Nate Anderson | Last updated <abbr class="timeago datetime">about 23 hours ago</abbr>

US online poker players, the federal government has a message for you: it wants to help you get your money back.
Last week, the FBI and the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York seized the domain names of the three largest Internet poker operations in the US market: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker. In addition to replacing the sites with a scary-looking FBI warning image, the government went after several US-based payment processors and also obtained a restraining order against bank accounts used by the poker companies. As a result, all of the money deposited by US players with the offshore poker companies suddenly became much harder to access.
That money is not necessarily lost. The government today announced an agreement with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker under which it will return their domain names temporarily—so long as they agree not to allow US-based IP addresses to gamble for real money, and so long as they don't allow any further US-based deposits. The move was made to make it easy for US players to withdraw their deposited cash.
“No individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained, and each implicated poker company has at all times been free to reimburse any player's deposited funds,” said US Attorney Preet Bharara. "In fact, this Office expects the companies to return the money the US players entrusted to them, and we will work with the poker companies to facilitate the return of funds to players, as today's agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker demonstrate."
Absolute Poker can sign on to the same deal if it wishes.
The sites are free to continue offering real gambling services in other countries, but the US government has cracked down on their US operations, which it says have earned a combined $3 billion in total revenue over the years.
Committed players won't be deterred from gambling, of course. One player described his own plan two days ago on a poker forum:
I am a US player and I have a plan that I am looking into and would like to know if anyone else has looked into it. I just emailed FTP [Full Tilt Poker] support to ask if it would be alright to change my address to a non-US address, use a VPN to change my IP to outside the US, and change my bank account to a non-US account. I asked them if they would consider it to be a violation of their Terms of Service. Also, I asked if they would consider me a non-US player… If they say OK, then I am going to get it set up but to be safe, I am not going to play until I hear about many successful cashouts to non-US players over the course of the next week or two.
Also, I have heard that a couple of Latvian bank accounts are good, safe, and easy to open same with HSBC, RBS, etc. Until I get a foreign bank account set up, I will use friends and GB (please PM me for more info) to cashout. GB said he is stopping wires to the US for now but he can still mail checks.
​
Sounds like a lot of work—which is exactly how the government wants it.
 
gheira

gheira

2
Re: Two Online Poker Domains Reactivated.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Perhaps this is a good news. However, the fact that these domains have marked as fraud to US players. They should clean out their names if they do not want to end their business in the industry.[/FONT]
 
T

Tripjacks

EOG Veteran
Re: Two Online Poker Domains Reactivated.

This hasn't helped me at all. My funds are still frozen.

They need to legalize this whole industry. The gov can get their cut and leave us alone.
 
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