judge freezes accounts

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/31192062/

WASHINGTON - An advocacy group for online poker said Tuesday that the federal government has frozen more than $30 million in the accounts of payment processors that handle the winnings of thousands of online poker players.

The Justice Department long has maintained that Internet gambling is illegal, a view that the poker group challenges.

The Poker Players Alliance told The Associated Press that the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York instructed three banks — Citibank, Goldwater Bank and Alliance Bank of Arizona — to freeze the accounts.

ohn Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, called the government’s move an “unprecedented action” against online poker players.

In a letter Monday night to Devlin-Brown, Pappas requested that his group be notified and given the opportunity to be heard regarding attempts to seize the frozen funds.

He said that “seizure of Allied Systems’ bank accounts would constitute a violation of due process because there are no exigent circumstances to justify deprivation of PPA members’ property without prior notice and a hearing.”

“The PPA will pursue every legal course available to ensure that poker players’ funds are not seized and their right to play poker online is protected,” Pappas wrote.

In the interview, Pappas said 20,000 player accounts were affected, but that his group has received assurances from online poker sites that the players would be fully compensated.

A 2006 law prohibits financial institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers. The Justice Department viewed Internet gambling as illegal even before that.

In a statement, the alliance chairman, former New York Republican Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, said the frozen funds belonged to individual poker players, not poker Web sites.

“This money should be immediately released by the Southern District to ensure that player payouts are not further disrupted,” he said.

The alliance, which is funded by its poker player members and the Interactive Gaming Council, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based trade association for online casinos, plans to spend $3 million lobbying this congressional session. The group supports legislation by Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, that would regulate rather than ban Internet gambling.

At least half the $16 billion Internet gambling industry, which is largely hosted on overseas sites, is estimated to be fueled by U.S.

all your monies are belong to government.

panic everybody!

you have no chance to survive make your time

no wonder i havent gotten my stars cashout yet.

wtf..

no one is talking what site or payment processor this is...hmmm

This is dumb... It doesn't take a genius to figure out that poker=/=gambling.

It's the governments own fault that all the online poker sites work out of random tiny countries and Indian reserves. I can understand that they want their share which is somewhat understandable but simply trying to outlaw it is baad.

someone set us up the bomb.

On June 10 2009 00:14 whamm! wrote: no one is talking what site or payment processor this is...hmmm

At http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/10poker.html
it states it includes PS and FTP

which I guess explains why I haven't got my PS cashout for 1.5 weeks

wtf.. so what's the plan going forward? should I try to cash out? not even bother playing? Is there anymore information about pokerstars cashouts not working?

The frozen payments of at least $33 million are owed to 27,000 players at four offshore poker sites, including PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com, according to John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, an advocacy group for online poker players. Mr. Pappas said prosecutors in the last two weeks have asked Citibank, Wells Fargo and two smaller banks to freeze funds in accounts belonging to two companies, Allied Systems and Account Services, that process payouts on behalf of the poker sites. The government action came to light over the weekend after checks issued to poker players by the two companies began bouncing, Mr. Pappas said. He said that the online casinos had assured him that they planned to pay players what they were owed.

so i guess we're still gonna get our money some way
but this is a really fag move by the gov't

fuck no wonder my 2.1k isnt in yet

dump all ur money to me, we have no laws here i can send the 80% of it later to you.

pm me if interested

Take off every 'ZIGmund'!!

now what? i guess this is what i get for keeping so much money on stars

Uhhh.
How bad is this? It sounds pretty bad but I'm hoping I'm wrong?

someone smart tell me what this means for me

wow this sounds horrible..

Hi All,

Understandably, many of you have concerns regarding certain bank accounts with poker players' money being frozen in the US, and I'd just like to reassure everyone that your funds remain safe and secure at FTP, and the processing of withdrawal requests is proceeding as normal and is still available to all of our players. I've been gathering information on our side to address some of the rumors and conjecture that have been flying around, and here's what I know:
We have multiple check processors. Only one processor was affected by the current situation, and we don't expect any further interruption in check withdrawals or any other withdrawal methods.
All players who were affected by this issue have had their money returned to their Full Tilt Poker account and all withdrawals are processing normally.
We always make sure we can cash out any of our players at any time. You should never have to worry that you won't get your money, and we're doing everything we can to ensure you always have plenty of methods available for both deposits and withdrawals.
eCheck deposits are temporarily unavailable, but we expect it to return as a deposit option sometime this week or next.
I'm not sure where this particular rumor started, but there are absolutely no plans to leave any market.
If you have any questions, or would like to know if there are more deposit or withdrawal options available that haven't appeared in your cashier, please contact support and they will be happy to help you out.

Click on the following link for an official statement from Full Tilt Poker regarding the frozen funds.
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/official-statement-online-poker-withdrawals
Doug


read this from FTPdoug on twoplustwo

FTP and pokerstars would try to reassure everybody even if they were in over their heads.

I'm more concerned by the fact that people are getting their money returned to them +10%. How can they afford to give 10% of potentially someone's entire bankroll for free. It makes your bankroll sound like play money. Like should I purposely try to cashout so I can get my money + 10% returned to my account?

Ugh this doesn't sound good :/