Three largest online poker sites indicted and shut down by FBI

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The founders of the three largest online poker sites were indicted by the FBI on Friday in what could serve as a death blow to the thriving industry.

Eleven executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and a number of their affiliates were charged with bank fraud and money laundering in an indictment unsealed in a Manhattan court. Two of the defendants were arrested on Friday morning in Utah and Nevada. Federal agents are searching for the others.

Prosecutors are seeking to immediately shut down the sites and to eventually send the executives to jail and to recover $3 billion from the companies. By Friday afternoon Full Tilt Poker’s site displayed a message explaining that “this domain name has been seized by the F.B.I. pursuant to an Arrest Warrant.”

... “These 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,” Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement.

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/04/three-largest-online-poker-sites-indicted-and-shut-down-by-fbi.html

[CBGLuthier]

1. Big Brother Says NO

Assholes.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

2. Just kept the ones open that are backed by the shadow govt.

Taking too much profit from them ;)

[GillesDeleuze]

4. Not exactly.

Pokerstars makes money for Isle of Mann/Scotland (although a Costa Rican company).

iPoker is a network of other poker sites, very small fish. so that might be swamped in a day or two.

[GillesDeleuze]

3. Um, the poker sites didn't do it.. the payment processors did.

Pokerstars and Full tilt have been very transparent with my dealings with them.

[SnakeEyes]

7. You don't know how things occurred

behind the scenes. The gov't is alleging the sites did it.

[Angry Dragon]

5. The same thing the big banks do

[sofa king]

6. This is terrible! Who's going to sponsor Starcraft 2 tournaments now?

Which are totally awesome, by the way. Though I wouldn't recommend betting on the replays, as the old joke goes.

http://www.youtube.com/teamliquidnet

[4saken]

8. So now they are getting back on them for their '06 workaround...

The article seems a bit disingenuous/unclear in its language, they are being charged with fraud, money laundering, etc, based purely on the premise that their '06 workaround was illegal. I think the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was pretty stupid to begin with. But now they have figured out a way to bring that back on them. They are just fine with some games of chance, Horse Racing, and the Stock Market tho, huh?

So how about that Horse Racing industry? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/how-horse-racing-avoided-new-us-internet-betting-law-418781.html">This '06 article mentions the following...

"The American horse racing industry paid more than $3m (£1.6m) in political donations, and spent millions of dollars more on entertainment and "education", to ensure its exemption from the new internet betting laws that sealed the destruction of offshore online gambling."

[rhett o rick]

9. I bet Sen Reid and his backers are happy. nm

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[truedelphi]

10. What casinos aren't money laundering operations?

And what banks aren't either?

Probably easier to list those that aren't than those that are.

[Mr. Sparkle]

11. I cant help but feel these are small fish compared to Wall Street.

The poker companies probably don't have any lobbyists.

[emilyg]

14. I have a feeling you're right.

[rhett o rick]

18. Agree. nm

[devils chaplain]

12. Cashing out my accounts now and crossing my fingers...

I'm American to the core but I'm getting close to the point that I want out. There are plenty of other countries that aren't this fucking retarded.

And to those behind this: FUCK YOU. If you have nothing better to do, quit and restore some of the budget cuts to programs thatactually do something worthwhile.

[Skip Intro]

15. Why can't the federal government GET OUT of my personal life choices???

Pretty pissed by this and you know, I'm wondering if the tea party doesn't have some spec of a point about an overgrown and overly intrusive federal government.

[No Elephants]

25. Be grateful for small favors. At least no one is making you die, rather than abort.

On second thought, that's not such a small favor, is it?

[Name removed]

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[Electric Monk]

17. You're arguing for your right to be defrauded online? Enjoy your stay.

[girl gone mad]

19. Nobody buys that this is about protecting people from fraud.

Not when you've got banks laundering hundreds of millions in Mexican drug cartel money, defrauding clients left and right, committing perjury and forgery and collecting trillions in bailouts which they use to pay themselves bigger bonuses than ever.

Our government operates like the Mafia. You can do whatever you want as long as the politicians get their cut.

[Jim Lane]

20. Big Brother isn't very tech-savvy. The games are still up.

I went to fulltiltpoker.com and saw, instead of the website, the notice of its seizure. Then I opened the Full Tilt software and was able to play with no problem.

So I guess no one can now download the software but if you already have it you can still play.

[closeupready]

28. The most important question is not if you can play, but can you cash out?

If you can't cash out, all you're doing is buying play chips with real money.

[Jim Lane]

34. I'm not buying play chips with real money...

because I certainly wouldn't fund my account with real money under the current uncertainty.

I'm playing with the chips I already have there. If the government ends up confiscating my account, I'll be stuck, but I think that's odds-against.

[JusticeForAll]

37. Poker Stars disallows cash games for US players n/t

as of this morning

[Ter]

21. Sadly, this is why many become libertarians

Big Brother, you suck.

[No Elephants]

27. I've seen your pro-Libertarian posts on several LBN threads this morning.

And I disagree with all of them.

[Ter]

29. You're free to do that

But you even disagree with this one? You want a ban on internet gambling?

[Odin2005]

22. Good. Those sites are nothing but sources of gambling addiction.

If I were a benevolent dictator I would shut down all casinos and other gambling operations.

[naaman fletcher]

23. What do you do for entertainment that doesn't harm anyone else?

I would like to shut it down.

[No Elephants]

26. People who want to gamble will always find a way, like playing numbers.

Keep it legal, regulate it and tax it.

[Psephos]

33. If I were a benevolent dictator I would shut down all drug trafficking...

...and outlaw cigarettes and prevent the showing of nudity on the internet and issue stern directives to eliminate people ever parking in handicap spaces or no-parking zones ever again.

:)

When it comes to vice, diktat doesn't work.

The best real-world solution for the things people are going to do anyway is regulation, taxation, and education, within a legal framework.

[pokerfan]

36. Destroying people's entertainment doesn't seem very benevolent

Are there problem gamblers? Of course. Just like there are problem drinkers, problem smokers, problem eaters, etc. Why just the other day I was standing in line behind a problem gambler at the 7-11 and watched her buy $100 worth of scratch-off tickets.

"Benevolently" banning popular activities (it's for their own good) just drives it underground and hands control over to gangsters. I thought we would have learned this from Prohibition 1.0. Legalize it and regulate it.

[jakeXT]

24. Lots of disbelief over at 2+2 forums

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/reuters-full-tilt-poker-pokerstars-absolute-poker-charged-illegal-gambling-1020606/

[Hawkowl]

30. You wanna gamble? Do it through Wall Street

That way the banksters get their cut. What a corrupt, third world country we live in.

[pokerfan]

31. Makes sense

The banksters perpetrate the biggest theft in history and get rewarded with bailouts.

But people playing poker online? No, you gotta shut that shit down. :shrug:

Legalize online gaming.

[barbtries]

32. i think it's bogus

i like poker. and i only gamble with my own money. not like the people who got clean away with the economic meltdown.

where is justice.

[pokerfan]

35. Well, on the plus side

this must mean that any day now the DOJ is going to indict the bankstas who destroyed the world's economy. Right?

[Jim Lane]

38. FullTilt, and probably some of the other sites, won't accept cash play from players in the U.S.

Their online announcement states that online gambling is not illegal in the U.S. and denounces the indictments -- but I suppose I can't blame them for being cautious.

My tax dollars at work - bleh.