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Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Founders Indicted -UPDATED

Update 1:06 AM EST April 17: Today has been largely uneventful. Tournament guarantees are dropping at the ‘big 3′. The Onyx Cup has been cancelled. SuperNova’s are reportedly receiving phone calls from Poker Stars reassuring them that their funds are safe.

Update 10:49 AM EST April 16: U.S players are now prompted when they start the Full Tilt client to update, and the update is that the client can’t be updated or accessed. Players outside of the U.S are able to download a working client and login from www.fulltiltpoker.co.uk.

All players can still login and play at Cereus.

Poker Stars still allows all players to login, but only players outside of the U.S can sit and play.

Update 11:38 PM EST: When logging into Poker Stars, non-US residents now see a reassuring message:

As you may have heard, we have had to suspend real money poker services to people based in the US due to legal developments there. These developments are confined to the US and do not have any impact on your ability to continue using our services.

Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the US it is business as usual.

The PokerStars website has been moved to www.pokerstars.eu, and our Support email address is now support@pokerstars.eu. We apologise to our players for any inconvenience caused by this disruption.

Please be aware that we are currently experiencing a very high volume of emails, so our response times are delayed. We will answer player emails as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter.

Update 10:31 PM EST: Scarlet Robinson just published a nice summary of the events thus far for pokerati. Also it appears like the Wynn / Stars partnership is dead.

Official statement from Full Tilt closing doors to US customers.

Update 9:37 PM EST:Chris Krafcik is reporting a statement from Full Tilt that they will “suspend ‘real money’ play in the United States until this case is resolved.”

Update 8:55 PM EST: The WSJ reporter Alexandra Berzon on twitter: “Fertitta spokeswoman said the partnership with Full Tilt – announced late march – had “expired”.”

Transfers are still working for some on Full Tilt, but not for others. Unlike Poker Stars, there has yet to be drastic action by Tilt.

Update 6:32 PM EST: Rumors are swirling that all indicted sites will be completely shutdown with 48 hours, most likely due t the massive seizure of funds and bank accounts. (source Andrew Feldman)

The founders of Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker were indicted today on charges of illegal gambling, bank fraud, and money laundering. Domains were seized and some are already reporting the url’s of each site displaying a US Government landing page.

Who are the defendants?
Poker Stars: Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate

Full Tilt: Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick

Absolute Poker: Scott Tom and Brent Beckley
Payment Processors: Ryan Lang, Ira Rubin, Bradley Franzen, and Chad Elie
Banks: John Campos

Campos and Elie are in the U.S and will appear before a U.S Magistrate Court Judge Monday and today respectively. Franzen is also in the United States. The remaining defendants are outside of the U.S and are being pursued.

What are the charges?
Charges include conspiring to and violating the UIGEA, and operating an illegal gambling business. The following quote from the SDNY Release summarizes it best:

Manhattan U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA said: “As
charged, 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. Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal
to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in
massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that
choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the
laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted
from their profits.”

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge JANICE K. FEDARCYK
said: “These defendants, knowing full well that their business
with U.S. customers and U.S. banks was illegal, tried to stack
the deck. They lied to banks about the true nature of their
business. Then, some of the defendants found banks willing to
flout the law for a fee. The defendants bet the house that they
could continue their scheme, and they lost.”

The SDNY Release is only a few pages and well worth a read. Allegedly banks were lied to, bribed, and ultimately partially purchased to circumvent the UIGEA payment processing terms.

What does this mean for players?
Currently clients at Full Tilt, Poker Stars and Cereus are all working. Poker Stars has disallowed US players from sitting at tables and disabled transfers.

If you aren’t already seeing a DOJ SDNY landing page at UB, Cereus, Stars, and Tilt, you can expect to when the DNS is updated at your ISP.

Those with funds on these rooms can logically expect delays with cashouts and trouble depositing.

Alfonse D’Amato of the PPA chimed in:

On behalf of the millions of poker players across the country, we are shocked at the action taken by the U.S. Department of Justice today against online poker companies and will continue tofight for Americans’ right to participate in the game they enjoy. Online poker is not a crime andshould not be treated as such. We are currently gathering all of the information around today’sannouncement and will offer detailed analysis when the full facts become available.

Other Notes
Early this morning prior to this news breaking we were notified by Full Tilt that rakeback payments were not going to be processed on time and no estimated payment time was given. Further and more telling, this was from jamesbarnesesq (former General Counsel at Party Poker) on Twitter:

Interesting – a large Full Tilt affiliate I’ve just spoken to they told him to stop sending US traffic 11 days ago. Coincidence?

Theres reason to believe this guy was the rat.

Follow the discussion in this thread.

Read the SDNY Document here.

We are awaiting statements from each room and will keep you posted as new information is available.

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