Reuters: Full Tilt Poker, Pokerstars and Absolute Poker charged with illegal gambling - Page 20 - Poker News

The FBI takeover page said the following:

Anyone w/ legal knowledge interpret this as FBI implying players are committing a crime? Obv impractical to enforce, but this seems like a new position if so.

in the coming days expect hundreds of thousands of poker players to be brought up on federal charges

04-15-2011 , 03:33 PM

#478

TNUC

adept

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,124

The Usa government where always going to come after pokerstars/ fulltilt at some point. Theres a reason sites like party poker shat themselves and payed out a massive fine in return for non-prosecution agreements. Deffo a start of a new era for Online poker.

04-15-2011 , 03:34 PM

#479

I_BLADE_U

grinder

Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 498

well good game SCOOP events and F euros

04-15-2011 , 03:34 PM

#480

tcs

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2009 Posts: 1,455

http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-g...scandal-2011-4

04-15-2011 , 03:34 PM

#481

Cosines11

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 4,566

Quote:

Originally Posted by I_KISS_FROGS

WTF

New most hated man on 2+2?

http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-g...scandal-2011-4

holy crap

04-15-2011 , 03:34 PM

#482

teddyFBI

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 6,596

04-15-2011 , 03:35 PM

#483

GusJohnsonGOAT

SESwamiGOAT

Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 15,809

Sky is falling for real this time. Unreal.

04-15-2011 , 03:35 PM

#484

junknspam

enthusiast

Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 88

the websites are "working for now" because u have already visited it in the past. go to a site u have not visited- for me- that was ultimatebet.com & i got that fbi message! but full tilt works for me because i visited there before.

at least this is what im guessing.

this is not a joke.

04-15-2011 , 03:35 PM

#485

stackinsideways

adept

Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 856

can you transfer at all on stars or did they lock that up also?

04-15-2011 , 03:36 PM

#486

Morphismus

BBV Poker Player of 2022

Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 24,279

Interesting background:
http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-g...scandal-2011-4

04-15-2011 , 03:36 PM

#487

Ce1ska

banned

Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 4,598

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Ickaccount

Howard Lederer perp walk photochops?

Not until Bitar ****s them over.

04-15-2011 , 03:36 PM

#488

stoicao

centurion

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 152

This is the worst day ever. I'm so in shock right now I don't know what to do. Somebody please give me something good that can come out of this situation. Seriously...

04-15-2011 , 03:36 PM

#489

NoahSD

Is Right

Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 18,843

Had some time to digest the DoJ press release. So, obviously if you're reading this thread, you know that this is pretty bad; they've indicted the owners of Stars, FTP, and Cereus, charged them with numerous crimes, and asked for extradition; they've shut down the domain names (though not the servers) of the sites as well.

That's not it, though:

1) They've shut down A LOT of payment processors and confiscated a lot of mnoey. This doesn't bode well for those of us with our money on the sites or in limbo. There's likely no point to cashing out right now... Stars isn't even allowing US players to cashout or transfer anyway.

There's no direct indication that the government wants to hold our money, but I suppose it's not clear what's "ours" and what isn't, nor is it clear how long it will take to sort this **** out. Remember Netteller.

2) They haven't just been charged with running a gambling site. That would be something that the sites could legitimately fight in court. They've been charged with lying to banks, bribing banks, and money laundering. There's no ambiguity there. They broke the law... in a multibillion dollar crime.

Some quotes:

Quote:

Because U.S. banks and credit card issuers were largely unwilling to process their payments, the Poker Companies allegedly used fraudulent methods to circumvent federal law and trick these institutions into processing payments on their behalf. For example, defendants ISAI SCHEINBERG and PAUL TATE of PokerStars, RAYMOND BITAR and NELSON BURTNICK of Full Tilt Poker, and SCOTT TOM and BRENT BECKLEY of Absolute Poker, arranged for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls.

Quote:

For example, a PokerStars document from May 2009 acknowledged that they received money from U.S. gamblers through company names that "strongly imply the transaction has nothing to do with PokerStars," and that PokerStars used whatever company names "the processor can get approved by the bank."

Ouch. So there's no question tha Stars was complicit in the fraud; it wasn't just payment processors.

Worse than the fraud, though, is the bribery:

Quote:

By late 2009, after U.S. banks and financial institutions detected and shut down multiple fraudulent bank accounts used by the Poker Companies, SCHEINBERG and BITAR [owners of Stars and FTP respectively] developed a new processing strategy that would not involve lying to banks. PokerStars, FullTilt Poker, and their payment processors persuaded the principals of a few small, local banks facing financial difficulties to engage in such processing in return for multi-million dollar investments in the banks. For example, in September 2009, ELIE [a payment processor] and others approached defendant JOHN CAMPOS, the Vice Chairman of the Board and part-owner of SunFirst Bank, a small, private bank based in Saint George, Utah, about processing Internet poker transactions. While expressing "trepidations," CAMPOS allegedly agreed to process gambling transactions in return for a $10 million investment in SunFirst by ELIE and an associate, which would give them a more than 30% ownership stake in the bank. CAMPOS also requested and received a $20,000 "bonus" for his assistance. In an e-mail, one of ELIE’s associates boasted that they had "purchased" SunFirst and that they "were looking to purchase" "a grand total of 3 or 4 banks" to process payments.

You don't need to be a lawyer to know that that stuff is unambiguously illegal.

3) As you might have noticed in the above quote, the FBI/DoJ have access to internal Poker Stars documents.

4) Scott Tom still owns AP according to the ****ing DoJ and FBI. So, AP and UB did lie to us about the current management. I wonder what else they lied about...

Last edited by NoahSD; 04-15-2011 at 03:39 PM. Reason: Fixed formatting

04-15-2011 , 03:37 PM

#490

omnishakira

High Troller

Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 9,732

Photoshoped pics of Ivey in jail or too soon ?

04-15-2011 , 03:37 PM

#491

titio

enthusiast

Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 52

The 3 sites are now down in Canada too !!

04-15-2011 , 03:37 PM

#492

OMG_LadyGaga

veteran

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 2,302

Is this just a highly elaborated leve? I logged on at all sites and sat down and played a couple hands just to check. All is running smooth

Arizona

04-15-2011 , 03:37 PM

#493

ninja-nong

newbie

Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 23

Some photoshop pics would be in order to give us dyslexics a better picture of what exactly is going on. Thanks

04-15-2011 , 03:37 PM

#494

shipitkthx

Pooh-Bah

Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 4,094

Stars transfers are now blocked.

04-15-2011 , 03:37 PM

#495

Jackal69

old hand

Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 1,653

everything still ok in uk homepages operational and us players playing on both ps and ftp...

04-15-2011 , 03:38 PM

#496

OMG_LadyGaga

veteran

Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 2,302

Is this just a highly elaborated leve? I logged on at all sites and sat down and played a couple hands just to check. All is running smooth

Arizona

04-15-2011 , 03:38 PM

#497

fmolina86

journeyman

Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 235

Confirmed, ChiliPoker is the way to go now.

04-15-2011 , 03:38 PM

#498

dozer

veteran

Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 2,549

Quote:

Originally Posted by rich99cook

How about the US government take a lesson from Europe and realize that they should stop living in the 19th century.

just fully legalize it like it is in the UK, stop being ****ing ******s. porn sites are legal yet this isnt in the US? land of the free my arse.

Porn sites pay taxes.

04-15-2011 , 03:38 PM

#499

fizzbuzz18

enthusiast

Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 64

Quote:

Originally Posted by MORSAY

I am french and I play on Ps.com

congrats. But in fact, it changes nothing, frenchs and italians are not allowed, and only a very few of them use VPN to play on the .com

and the smartests ones don't say they are french on public forums !