April 2011 US Legal Archive

Please see our main US poker sites website page for current data.
April 28, 2011 – 12:01am

– You can now cashout money from Pokerstars. Still waiting on an announcement from Full Tilt and whatever AP and UB are planning on doing.

April 27, 2011 – 12:15am

– Playersonly and Sportsbook.com (including poker) are expected to leave the US market on May 1st. Rumor has it they will continue to accept current US players deposits and withdraws but not accept new customers. My theory is they got overwhelmed with all the new players and were overwhelming all their processing resources for new players and in order to keep current players happy, they are shutting down temporarily to the US, hopefully. If you want to play, now is possibly the last time to sign up.

April 24, 2011 – 4:42pm

– It appears that about 100 (I didn’t count exactly how many there were) bank accounts are being seized in what is called the Karaka Declaration. From what I’ve read they are bank accounts closely associated with the poker sites, mainly that of Full Tilt Poker.

April 20, 2011 – 3:03pm

– Pokerstars and Full Tilt have come to agreements that all player funds will be distributed back to the players. No poker players money will be seized and in the press release it looks as is they are just waiting to get a financial body to facilitate the transactions. Also, Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars have come to an agreement to regain control over their dot com domains. There will be no US play allowed.

April 20, 2011 – 1:56pm

– I’ve been mostly following Stars and FTP but I wanted to check up on Absolute Poker today, so just now I logged in. I was able to sit down at a real money table. Upon sitting down I was given a notice that real money play was suspended from the USA….but I could still play for real money, strange. Anyway I was on the “no-download” software so not sure if that had anything to do with it. The support email for AP is support@absolutepoker.net and the new site has moved to absolutepoker.eu. Personally I wouldn’t try to deposit there and would stick to sites with no DOJ issues and that are accepting US players like Playersonly.com

April 19, 2011 – 4:36pm

– Tomorrow I. Nelson Rose, Gambling Law Professor who we’ve been lucky enough to have write a couple articles on our site about the US situation will be going on the radio to speak about the closure of pokerstars, FTP, Absolute, etc. This should be a great show for some answers and “predictions”. Nelson Rose does consulting all over the world, it seems like everytime I talk to him he’s in a different country speaking about gambling. Anyways the url for the radio show is affiliateliferadio.com and will be on at 2pm Pacific Time tomorrow. He will be answering questions live by callers and in the chat box.

– ESPN has is apparently going to be pulling any advertising of poker sites and and TV shows. They’ve declined to speak about the WSOP. Im sure they will eventually end up just blurring out any gear players used to advertise these sites. To be honest, I always liked watching the WSOP more when everyone was a walking advertisement.

April 19, 2011 – 1:44am

– The question I’m hearing right now is how, and when will players be able to cashout money. Many factors come into play. One would be how fast they work out arrangements with the US department of Justice. Because so many banks were seized, it’s hard to tell how much money these poker sites “lost”. Like I said in past cases, the government isn’t after the players money. One thing I’m keeping an eye on is the amount of players at these 3 sites. This will give an indication of how much non-US players they have, and ability to continue operations and not go financially bankrupt. Either way, I believe the money seized in the 75 bank accounts, and the money in players accounts will be plenty for the US Department of Justice to get their $3 billion and pay out players. The question remains, how long this will take. I’ll try and talk to some people but as of right now not too many people know anything! One thing I’ve learned from gaming sites is that once they can’t get money from you anymore, you’re a nobody to them so don’t hold your breathe for them to make payouts a priority, unless you live outside of the USA and are paying rake!

April 16, 2011 – 4:15am

– An announcement by Full Tilt and Pokerstars has been made. Both have admitted that US play is suspended until they negotiate with the US but have assured that player balances ARE SAFE! More will likely follow tomorrow as to how and when players can cashout.

April 15, 2011

– The Poker Players Alliance issued a statement, basically saying they too were shocked at recent developments and were trying to gather data as to how this happened. The Department of Justice, Full Tilt Poker, and Pokerstars are refusing to comment at this time. Many are worried about the safety of their money at sites that still accept US players and don’t have indictments out for the owners such as PlayersOnly.com. Personally, and it IS a personal call but I don’t see there to be anything to worry about with your money that is on these sites, or having to worry about getting money off of Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker. Some may recall that the US DOJ shut down Neteller, and all funds were refunded to US citizens although it did take some time!

April 15, 2011

– URGENT: The Department of Justice has officially shut down Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolutepoker. Most people are being greeted with the following image. You can read the first page of the US DOJ’s release of this news here. As of now, PlayersOnly.com is the main site people are going to. Not all people are seeing this notice as it just happened. Some people can access the actual poker room but can not sit in the games. We will continue to stay on this as new stuff comes in….

April 10, 2011

– Sorry for the lack of daily updates. Do to personal issues, I have not been following what’s going on. After briefly looking at some news and forums, it doesn’t seem like much is going on anyway. Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker are beginning to form alliances with large US land based casinos if and when poker is legalized. New bills to regulate online poker on a federal level have come out but to be honest, until they are close to being passed, it has proven to be pointless to mention them. How many have gone and passed in the last few years now….countless it seems.