Online poker sites settle U.S. lawsuit for $731 million

[snakeair]

Here is the results of this scandel.

The Department of Justice announced a $731 million settlement Tuesday with online poker companies PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to resolve bank fraud and money laundering allegations.

Full Tilt also resolved allegations that it operated a Ponzi scheme, failing to maintain sufficient funds on deposit for players to withdraw. Prosecutors said last year that Full Tilt had used more than $400 million worth of player funds to pay board members and other owners since 2007.

As part of Tuesday's settlement, Full Tilt will forfeit to the government virtually all of its assets, which will then be acquired by PokerStars.

PokerStars will repay the approximately...

Continued at: http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/31/tech...ement/?npt=NP1

[ScriptMan]

Let's be clear in this thread that PokerStars was not accused of any fraud. They are acting in a capacity like Godaddy when Registerfly went down. They do by government action have some funds belonging to US players that were frozen and will be refunded as a part of this deal.

[Jim Gillum]

I would have never bet on that....)

[marketingmanuk]

Originally Posted by ScriptMan

Let's be clear in this thread that PokerStars was not accused of any fraud. They are acting in a capacity like Godaddy when Registerfly went down. They do by government action have some funds belonging to US players that were frozen and will be refunded as a part of this deal.

...with the greatest of respect Pokerstars were amongst other things setting up phoney businesses (e.g. Golf Ball Stores) to route gambling money through the US (as well as miscoding credit card transactions). Whilst you can argue that they did this in their mind out of necessity to keep operating in the US, if any other business this is certainly illegal.

...Pokerstars have played the PR game very well. Coming to the rescue of Full Tilt players in the US they've been seen very much as a knight in shining armour - but even they don't deny (and haven't in their settlement) the extent they went to within the banking system to hide funds.