Notice: View Poker Sites Still Accepting USA Players
Following the culmination of a year long grand jury probe, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker have now been forced to block access to their sites for all US players.
US Congress introduced the UIGEA in 2006 making it illegal for their citizens to gamble online but nevertheless many poker rooms still continued to target and operate in the US market against the law.
However, not only have three of the world’s biggest poker rooms now suspended their US operations but the sites’ creators are also facing a range of charges including illegal gambling, money laundering and bank fraud.
Thus far, the poker companies have had 76 bank accounts in 14 countries shut down, interrupting the flow of billions of dollars to their sites. According to authorities, the sites are accused of disguising gambling payments and deceiving banks into processing the money by creating fake corporations and web sites claiming to be selling unrelated merchandise, such as jewellery and golf balls. Apparently around a third of these payments would then show up on the poker companies’ books as revenue.
As U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara explains, the defendants “concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits.”
The US government has now determined to go after more than $3 billion in money laundering penalties, and have so far arrested 11 people who could each face at least 30 years in jail. These men include PokerStars’ Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate, Full Tilt Poker’s Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick, and Absolute Poker’s Scott Tom and Brent Beckley.
As the crack-down on online poker continues, US poker players have been waking up to the reality of not being able to play at their favourite sites. In the meantime, the defendants seem to be denying any wrong doings and assuring their customers their deposits would be kept safe.
For instance, a PokerStars statement read: “Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the U.S. it is business as usual.”
In the meantime, US players can visit this page to find a list of poker sites still accepting usa players.
what right does the american goverment have to say how we
spend our money or if we choose to play free did i say free rolls, its time for american citizens to stand up to this out of control govermnet.
The government says, “It’s MY money, and I need it NOW!!”
these poker sites have been shut down for fraud. besides the bank scam they have been rigging the games to keep bad players in. while people playing were defending the site by saying: why would they risk a billion dollar corporation by fraud? well now you know they would and they did
We should and need to e-mail our Congressmen and Senators and tell them that if they don’t do something about this we will not Vote for them..!! P.S. This is B.S.
I WANT MY POKER BACK
This is great news, Now we may be able to get honest operators for our poker sites,,, UB should not have pissed off Phil Helmuth, he was the one to hep us , sorry help the govt get the good on the bastards… in my book he is a god..We , sorry, the goverment has thousand of complaints on the illegal tings these site were doing.. Including sending woman up to players rooms so they would be late the next day tourn start.. But when they did it to me, sorry , Phil that was the end of the poker sites
I have maintained all along that these poker sites rig the games. Hands are dealt that guarantee action, thereby increasing the “rake”. It’s all bout the money. I refuse to play on line for this reason
well, they should have done this for long time ago….if they did, they could have saved alot more people from giving money to these bastards!! online gambling is a trick, it’s so obvious that you can’t get the money from them, only they take your money. It only takes one minute for them to take money out of your bank!! but it takes so long for them to wire money back into your bank!! to gamble online, we’re all in a lose-lose position!!!! unless they have the sites where we can get our money back within 24 hours money, not a week!!! however, i am so happy to know that they’re shut down, it’s a great news.
have any of you thought about those people working for them who is probably going to lose their jobs now? they have families to support. and don’t tell me they shouldn’t have worked for a company like this in the first place – in today’s economy, you take a job where you can get it.
I am currently banned from all three sites prior to this because i had E-mailed them telling them that the sites are rigged./ Everything that “perdition ” said is true and i Called them on it and they banned me.
Why would the US Gov’t seize a domain name. If the French gov’t said Sears was breaking French law would they seize sears.com? Seems kind or arrogant to me.
Bye. USA. Land of the free my ass. I am moving to Canada.
f**k you government
Perhaps the government should have put taxes in place initially so they could have regulated it. They don’t oppose gambling. They just oppose not getting a piece of the action.
makes no difference if your moving to canada or not..all payments have been stopped no one is getting money back everything has been stopped was told this morning on live chat on ub
I am a canadian resident and i spoke to live chat this morning on ub/ap and they told me that all proceed are being stopped at this moment for everyone , and they dont know when they will be able to do any payouts…now how is that fair that our $$ is being held and us canadians are allowed to gamble on the internet??
where will this end? individual freedoms have become a joke even in the US … all sorts of stupid reasons are used to justify a police state. what is worse is that people are stupid and fall for it …
Seriously me? The workers? For one thing, these sites probably don’t hire US workers. For the other, do you defend mobsters when their bosses are taken down because good work is hard to find??
To everyone who is saying that this is a matter of freedom or govt interference, you are a moron. Gambling is highly regulated to protect the citizens / gamblers. If they’re being shutdown for suspicion of fraud, then the authorities have evidence to believe that the sites are stealing from you. How dumb can you be to defend their potentially criminal actions?
Toomanyidiots & Others: The “fraud” being discussed here is related to a 1961 banking regulation designed to address organized crime, speficalyl bookmakers. The law as is being applied here is not that the poker sites are defrauding players, it’s that they were forced by the US Government into schemes of moving money in order to continue operation that were a technical violation of this law. It’s absurd that you can gamble all day long on eTrade as long as you’re paying their fee (rake) and are investing $2,000+ in the stock market but you can’t throw $50 into a poker site. Double standard.
Native American Reservation Casinos in California…Same idea
Very well said Scott
As a Canadian player I noted a couple of years ago the site were rigged to get u to bet when I first started seemed I could not lose hit on everything, now I play only the best hands and i constantly lose money,they can program u in for winning or losing so play small for enertainment only
The list of crimes these offshore tax evading sites is a mile long and a mile deep. Hopefully these the owners fall into their own crap pits for 30 years or so.
Department of justice my ass their all crooks.
thats why i deposited very little and bet small
They are just mad because they “the gov” didnt get the money they wanted !!!!!!!!!
I am really going to sleep better now, knowing I am protected by the Fed’s. I had $20.00 (my Bank Roll) on one site and it took them one whole day to send me my money. Durn Crooks. Hum how long does it take to get tax refunds?