US Government Finalizes Deal for Full Tilt Poker Acquisition

US Government Finalizes Deal for Full Tilt Poker Acquisition August 6, 2012 August 7, 2012 Tim Glocks https://www.poker-online.com/author/tim
Posted on  Aug 6, 2012 | Updated on  Aug 7, 2012 by Tim Glocks

The US government has signed a settlement deal with PokerStars, the largest online poker room in the world, and Full Tilt Poker, the one-time rival of PokerStars, according to the terms of which Full Tilt Poker will forfeit its assets, PokerStars will acquire those assets after paying the US government $731 millions, and Full Tilt Poker’s former poker players will get back their poker deposits.

PokerStars, which has its headquarters in the Isle of Man, has agreed to pay the US government a sum of $547 million. The US DoJ will use part of this amount to reimburse Full Tilt Poker’s former US poker players, who have been waiting for a refund ever since the US federal authorities cracked down on Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker on April 15 last year, a day commonly referred to as the Black Friday of online poker within the poker gaming community.

While PokerStars immediately reimbursed its US players, Full Tilt Poker could not, as a result of which Full Tilt Poker players all over the world could not gain access to their poker funds. According to the terms of the recently finalized deal, PokerStars will also repay Full Tilt Poker’s players from other parts of the world.

The deal also prevents PokerStars from employing or hiring certain individuals indicted by the US government of illegal gambling, money laundering, and bank fraud. In exchange, the US government will drop all charges against Full Tilt Poker as well as PokerStars. While PokerStars can no longer offer its real money poker services to the US online poker community, the deal leaves it free to apply for licenses and launch online poker services within the US once the US federal government or individual state governments legalize and regulate their online poker industry.

A large number of online poker companies, including Party Poker, withdrew from the US poker market when the US federal government passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. While this law did not criminalize the act of playing poker online, it made it illegal for banks and financial institutions from processing gambling related funds. US poker companies such as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker devised a number of illegal methods to dodge this law so that US poker players could play real money poker online. Finally, the US DoJ cracked down on these sites and seized their domain names in April 2011.

Tim GlocksAuthor

Tim Glocks is a retired professor, he currently contributes to Poker-Online.com. Tim enjoys playing poker and has taken it up as a hobby since his retirement. He has taken part in many online tournaments and has become a veteran in a short space of time. Visit Tim’s google + page here