The FBI Seizes The Three Biggest Poker Websites
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42613518...me_and_courts/


The U.S. Attorney for New York has indicted the founders the three largest online poker companies in the U.S. and seized their websites in a major crackdown on internet gambling.

The indictment charges eleven defendants — including the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker — with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses.

In addition, the domains for FullTiltPoker.net and AbsolutePoker.com have been seized by the FBI and replaced by this pleasant reminder that gambling is illegal.

The indictment essentially spells out a scheme by the poker companies to set up phony bank accounts to process illegal gambling transactions, either by lying to the banks about the nature of the transactions or by targeting struggling banks to who need the money to stay afloat.

In addition to the criminal charges, the US Attorney filed a civil suit seeking $3 billion in damages. The FBI froze 75 bank accounts and seized five websites, in addition to the arrests that were made today.

The bank and wire fraud charges carry a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.

All those sites are still up...

In Canada, we aren't the United States last time I checked.

Down in US but up everywhere else i.e. Canada/Europe

yea, you can obviously tell when you receive payouts from these sites they try to keep it as low key as possible

Bodog goes through like 2 different banks and prints checks at like a kinko's or somthing in Alberta for Canadian customers, never do you ever see "bodog" on anything, and the reason for any payment you receive is "marketting"

Hmmm i wonder how this affects sponsorships of those televised poker tournaments in the States

Woah! Looks like Party Poker and Golden Palace aren't affected. Lucky for them.

For me, full tilt and poker stars are dead. :(

poker is a fucking joke, takes no skill its purely based on luck. The only skill is holding a straight face. I hate the commercialization of poker these last few years.

Gambling is illegal? Lolwut.
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go win the world series then

i hate poker but its probably not as easy as that..

in america its only legal on reserves, atlantic city, vegas (that im certain about)

edit: i stand corrected Mississippi allows it in Tunica and Riverboat casinos etc and not all states allow reserves to set up gambling

+1, I don't even gamble and I know that it takes much more skill than it seems.

If you don't think there are people out there beating the game both online and live consistently you really don't have a clue or an educated opinion on the subject. For most people this isn't the case but there are lots of people who make a living and some who make a REALLY GOOD LIVING doing it.

:failed:

you're trolling right?

Read about the MIT students who beat the Black Jack tables. They found a way to minimize the risk of the luck of the draw, yet they acknowledge that without a huge financial backing they wouldn't be able to sit at the tables long enough to recoup any losses if they hit a string of bad luck.

Poker is a game, not a sport. Games have an element of chance. Thus despite how good any poker player is they are still bound by the luck of the draw. Their skill allows them to calculate the risk of that luck of the draw better than most, yet it still comes down to luck, not skill.

For everyone 1 person winning, there's a table of people losing. For every 1 person winning big, there's 10s or 100s or 1000s losing.

I know for every winner there is a shitload of a losers but to say that it's a soley a game of only luck like buddy did is retarded. If you keep making +EV plays overtime you will win. That doesn't mean you arern't going to have losing sessions but over time you'll come up ahead.

I personally know a few people who have made a healthy living at poker over the past 6-7 years and continue to do so. These guys even pay taxes on their winnings, have gotten mortgages and what not. I'm not talking about the guys on TV with millions of dollars, I'm talking about online grinders who make a living off other peoples mistakes.

I think what really bothers me about this statement is the fact that you distill poker as people who are really just good liars with luck. But poker is much more than that, it strategy/math/intimidation/deception all rolled into one event.

Skill is much more involved in this than just keeping a straight face and hoping luck is on your side. If this were the case, there would no one that would seriously profit from poker.

There is no luck in a draw, just probability.

Those MIT students didn't bet big until it was probable that they would actually win. Determining the conditions where probability is in their favour is a skill, not luck. Similarly a poker player can avoid betting big until it is probable that they will win. Alternatively, a good poker player can make money out of situations where, by draw, they will probably lose, but due to other circumstances, can (and do) win. This is a gross oversimplication of course. The problem with televised poker is that it, too, is too often a gross oversimplication.

Also, it is entirely possible to have a table of winners being fed by one or two donkeys. It happens more often than you'd think.

BTW, by your definition, baseball is a game of chance too. If a batter breaks his bat, is that not "bad luck?". (I don't disagree with you, though, that poker is not a sport).

absolute poker is down, with the fbi message

wow. people are still going to gamble online. all this does is give all business to online gambling sites that are overseas.

they just cant tax online gambling or something?

my 2 cents

ouch