Settlement Between Online Poker Sites & U.S. Authorities

Tuesday of this week, the American Department of Justice settled with the online poker sites, PokerStars & Full Tilt Poker, for a $731 million agreement to resolve the bank frauds and money laundering accusations. This also resolved all accusations against Full Tilt’s Ponzi scheme. They were believed to have used player’s funds worth up to $400 million to pay the owners and the board members.

The Settlements Agreements

An agreement in Tuesday’s settlement stated that Full Tilt Poker will forfeit almost all of their assets to the US government who will then sell it to PokerStars. PokerStars also took upon themselves the $184 million debt that Full Tilt has toward their foreign players. Any US victim of Full Tilt’s “Ponzi Scheme” will get reimbursed with the $547 million forfeited by PokerStars.

The Accusations

All this started during April of last year when the US government alleged PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker of bypassing federal laws against internet gambling. They were doing so by scamming banks and credit card issuers to process payments for US players. The poker sites then made sure that the money from the US gamblers would be camouflaged as payments to thousands of different non-existent online merchants for various types of merchandise.

The Conclusion

All of the allegations against the online poker sites were dropped after they had payed the amount that they agreed on. The only thing that remains to complete the settlement would be for Absolute Poker to forfeit all its assets which they failed to have an immediate response to. Both sides, the US authorities and the poker sites, were pleased with the final decision and agreements that were put in place.