GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 16 - May 2011

Tweet Cred: Vin Narayanan tracks the DOJ indictment story as it unfolds on Twitter A pril 15, 2011, started out as a pretty good day for online poker. On what is usually thought of as “Tax Day” in the United States (though not this year due to a fluky holiday), there was no hint that big trouble was on the way. Instead, poker players were talking about former World Series of Poker Main Event champs, winning poker tournaments, regulating online poker and charity poker tournaments. ppapoker PokerPlayersAlliance What has Joe Cada been up to - Find out - Young #poker champ enjoys the easy life http://ow.ly/4BdXB JasonMercier Jason Mercier Just wanna say thank you so much to all my friends, family, and fans that sweated me on my way to victory yesterday!! #youreawesome CasinoCityVin Casino City Vin The federal path to online poker runs through the Senate. And the Vegas Sun says Ensign will play a role along with Reid. TheGrinder44 Michael Mizrachi Playing Nick Toulon $2.15 Head Up Sit Go @FullTiltPoker Good Luck Nick! #fb Around 2 p.m. ET in the U.S., word started to spread that the Department of Justice was up to something. Kevmath Kevin Mathers hmm www.ub.com has a doj seizure notice on it joesebok joe sebok everything looks fine on our end, as of right now. maybe a redirect? people like to have fun... WriterJen Jennifer Newell on my computer, took screenshot for UB, stars and tilt are fine As poker players (and writers) scrambled to figure out was going on, Marketwatch and CNBC broke the news. CNBC CNBC Three Largest Internet Poker Companies Charged With Fraud, Illegal Gambling - Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, & Absolute Poker - Charged CasinoCityVin Casino City Vin Breaking news: DOJ indicts 11 including founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker. Developing! http://j.mp/i8UdNj (Marketwatch link) The initial reports were slim on details, and poker players, affiliates and online gaming professionals flooded Twitter and the forums looking for answers. PokerScout1 Poker Scout Real money traffic is currently dropping in a very uncharacteristic way at PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker Online poker’s most popular forum, Two Plus Two, briefly crashed under the suddenly massive server loads. So did the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) website. The website of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York was functioning, however. And it had posted a press release about its indictment of 11 people linked to Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker, including the founders of the companies and employees involved in payment processing. CasinoCityVin Casino City Vin U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York working with Interpol to arrest the PokerStars, FullTilt and AP chiefs. CasinoCityVin Casino City Vin Isai Scheinberg, Paul Tate from PokerStars, Raymond Bitar, Nelson Burtnick of Full Tilt, Scott Tom and Brent Beckley of AP named. PDF soon. It was quickly becoming clear that the DOJ had struck a massive blow against online poker in the United States. In addition to the charges of bank fraud, money laundering, illegal gambling offenses and violating the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), the DOJ had seized five Internet domains and issued restraining orders against approximately 76 bank accounts in 14 countries. The DOJ was also seeking $3 billion in civil money laundering penalties in addition to the forfeiture of funds. PokerStars and Full Tilt both stopped taking American play, and like Absolute and UB, seizure notices eventually replaced their sites. SPECIAL REPORT Special Report