The one question I have been asked many times by my clients with money held up because of the Department of Justice’s action against online poker sites is, “When will I get my money back?” The answer appears to be sooner rather than later.
This morning, the Department of Justice announced that the DOJ has entered into agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker so that the domains that the DOJ seized will be allowed to be used by the sites so that player funds can be refunded.
The agreements allow for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to use the pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com domain names to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in account with the companies. The deposit of funds by U.S. players is expressly prohibited. In addition, the agreements do not prohibit, and, in fact, expressly allow for, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to provide for, and facilitate, players outside of the United States to engage in playing online poker for real money. The agreements also require the appointment of an independent Monitor to verify PokerStars’ and Full Tilt Poker’s compliance with the agreements. The Government stands to enter the same agreement with Absolute Poker if it so chooses.
As expected, the agreement parallels that of the Neteller fiasco. The one major plus for players is that it took Neteller several months to reach that agreement with the DOJ; in this case, it took several days.
Additionally, like the Neteller agreement there’s an independent monitor. Clearly, the monitor will make sure that PokerStars and Full Tilt abide by the agreement. Additionally, while there is no mention in the press release of the DOJ getting a list of who is being paid, it is certainly possible the DOJ required such a list and that such a list will make its way to the IRS. We’ll likely not know unless (or until) audits begin.
There are still several unanswered questions. Unlike with Neteller (which was a payment processor), PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker must still get the money to Americans. Using payment processors is out (unless the DOJ suddenly changes its stripes). I am guessing that the two poker sites will contract with a European payment processor and cut checks and mail them to all impacted individuals.
As for Isai Scheinberg of PokerStars and Raymond Bitar of Full Tilt Poker ever standing trial in the US, the odds are about as good as it snowing in Irvine today. As the DOJ acknowledges in today’s press release, there is nothing illegal about PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker offering online poker for real money in other areas of the world. This likely makes extradition to the US very difficult.
So after a black Friday, a relatively pleasant Wednesday morning for online poker players in the US. Unfortunately, the DOJ has made quite clear that they believe that online poker is illegal, and continuing to offer real money games to Americans is a very bad idea.