New York – The U.S. Justice Department has reached an
agreement with two of the online gambling companies whose domains it seized
last week, which will allow U.S. customers to withdraw their funds and foreign
bettors to continue gambling on the sites. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker
entered into agreements with the Justice Dept.; the same deal has also been
offered to Absolute Poker.
The sites face numerous charges over allegations
they used payment processors who masked gambling funds as flowers and other
items, to circumvent a U.S. law forbidding banks from processing online
gambling transactions.
Eleven individuals have also been charged in connection
with the domain seizures.
“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,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said
in a statement.
“In fact, this office expects the companies to return the
money that U.S. players entrusted to them, and we will work with the poker
companies to facilitate the return of funds to players.”
Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/3ccvohf
(Bloomberg)
http://tinyurl.com/3jnfjs7
(Reuters)
http://tinyurl.com/3ddqh64
(DMW previous coverage)
