DoJ Releases Funds from Frozen PokerStars Account
Online poker players in the US were shocked when the US federal government swooped down on three online poker giants—Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker—arrested key people associated with these sites, froze their accounts, and seized their domain names. Hundreds and thousands of poker players could do nothing but just wait to get back their poker deposits. PokerStars players were the luckiest because the online poker room was prompt in repaying its poker players. By the middle of May, it had repaid over $100 million to its US poker players, after which it repaid around $125 million.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) filed a document last Friday in the US District Court, New York, stating that it is willing to release an unknown amount of money from a frozen account belonging to PokerStars.
The DoJ had frozen the account as part of its $3 billion civil suit filed against Absolute Poker, Full Tilt Poker, and PokerStars, which in turn forms part of its indictment against the three companies’ payment processors on April 15, popularly known as the Black Friday of online poker.
Accordingly, the funds have been released from PokerStars’ Hapoalim Bank account number 272010 in Luxembourg, registered in the name of Sphene International, a payment processor associated with PokerStars. The government has permitted PokerStars to use the funds as it likes as long as it retains a sum of $5.5 million, which the federal government claims to be profits gained by providing online poker gaming services to US citizens.
According to the agreement, the government will not object to the way PokerStars uses the funds in this account as long as it retains $5.5 million in the account till the end of the pending US government vs. PokerStars case.
However, PokerStars appears to have multiple accounts at Hapoalim Bank associated with Sphene International as the civil suit filed against it mentions multiple accounts. The DoJ has made no mention of its reasons for unlocking the funds and turning them over to PokerStars, but the reason is quite obvious. PokerStars has been extremely prompt in repaying its US poker players, unlike Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker. While Full Tilt Poker has been unable to repay any of its players, PokerStars co-operated with the DoJ and made it easy for US players to withdraw their funds from their PokerStars accounts. Besides, PokerStars is still functioning and in order while Full Tilt Poker’s licenses to provide gambling services have been suspended by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.
Besides, PokerStars is still the largest online poker site for ring games in the world, says PokerScout.com. The online poker room attracts a weekly average of 24,600 ring game players. PokerStars.it and PokerStars.fr, online poker rooms for the Italian and French markets respectively, occupy one of the top ten positions. While PokerStars.it occupies the fourth rank and attracts a weekly average of 2,300 ring game players, PokerStars.fr occupies the seventh rank and attracts a weekly average of 1,800 ring game players.
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