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DOJ Shuts down 3 top Online poker sites
belligerent
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Registered User regular
Didn't see a thread about this yet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8456290/Online-poker-sites-shut-down-and-charged-with-fraud-in-US-crackdown.html
Back in 2005-6, the US passed the UIGEA (unlawful internet gambling enforcement act) and yet many US citizens were still gambling.
This is huge. Do you play poker on any of the sites? When table games became legal in PA, I withdrew my money because I was afraid of something like this a few years ago.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8456290/Online-poker-sites-shut-down-and-charged-with-fraud-in-US-crackdown.html
US investigators said the websites, two of which are registered in the UK, had “concocted an elaborate criminal fraud” to trick and bribe banks into “massive money laundering and bank fraud”.
The founders of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker could face up to 20 years in jail if found guilty of breaching US anti-gambling and money laundering laws.
Back in 2005-6, the US passed the UIGEA (unlawful internet gambling enforcement act) and yet many US citizens were still gambling.
This is huge. Do you play poker on any of the sites? When table games became legal in PA, I withdrew my money because I was afraid of something like this a few years ago.
belligerent on
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Oh well!
The Isle of Man has a big base too.
This could get quite political. The UK/Ireland etc have a relaxed attitude to gaming and off shore based sites and the lobby is rather strong in Westminster (being in receipt of a long run of concessions).
Just seems like a dumb petulant act
I don't know what to expect or what to hope for. I wish we could stop playing these stupid morality games. Gambling is immoral therefore we must pass heavy handed legislation? Never mind the people who actually make their living off internet poker who are now effectively out of the job. I remember why this bill was passed. There were hundreds of 'casino' sites popping up all over the internet, scamming people out of a shitload of money. It wasn't a sudden, rapid influx of card games that put them on alert. They've extended the original intent to cover poker because...they can? I don't see any other reason.
Looks like just a simple DNS hijacking then, which the rest of the world doesn't give a shit about.
Spare Scrolls for trade
The actual traffic on the sites has only dipped by 10-15%
Seizure of the .com domain doesn't, or at least, I can't see how it would.
This would make a good thread for discussing all these domain seizures.
That there now is a Firefox extension for to bypass them all.
Spare Scrolls for trade
The web domains are pretty irrelevant because all you do there is download the software.
In both cases US people who like to gamble will get screwed.
Edit: Top level domain seizures by the US, as far as I'm concerned, is reason enough to actually discuss tiered internet structure with a straight face.
Zeeny: you're assuming rational actors in the US government. Try starting with puritanical moralists and you should end up in the right spot. (end result is correct though)
They don't have a problem with online gambling because of moral issues, but because of lack of taxation and a very, very strong casino lobby.
"Too big to fail"
Lol, yes online poker a tech so advanced the no US company could possibly replicate it.
The article clears it up pretty well actually, they are being charged with bank fraud in the US, because the USDs they were receiving were coming from US based banks and being used for illegal purposes.
It has nothing to do with the tech. He said the legislation.
The United States is really fucking ambiguous about internet laws compared to other nations and any time it comes up as an issue people start freaking out.
Edit - Regardless, this is about something else entirely; it's about money laundering.
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Lol, yes, exactly what I said!
I'm sure this move will only bring more convenience, lower prices, and accountability to American gamblers!
Further, why should it be any different to do said money pooling with people online instead of in person? Does this kinds of legislation exist solely because brick and mortar gambling establishments are butthurt over possible lost profits to other establishments? Why would they go after online gambling because it might be used in money laundering rather than go after the money launderers themselves? By that kind of logic you could make a ridiculous argument like "Bank robbers wear shoes to rob banks, we should ban the sale of shoes!"
Yes. Yes, it does.
e: I guess the GOP is blaming this on Obama. I'm not surprised...
So how about those Mexican drug cartels, eh?
Ha!
These same banks are the ones actually doing the money laundering, according to the federal investigators.
But it's not their fault, because they're being "tricked" into doing so by the poker sites.
As we all know, bankers are naive little lambs when it comes to the manipulation of money.
Just because the rest of the world can still play doesn't mean they're immune from any US-produced results.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/major-online-poker-sites-accused-over-money-laundering-2269011.html
note: in 2007 Northern Rock was the subject of the first bank run in England in the last 150 years.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/major-online-poker-sites-seized-charged-with-money-laundering.ars
Theres also the tax revenue that brick and mortar casinos pay, and the gaming commissions to ensure the integrity of the games.
Really I don't see the difference between this and someone who was selling drugs or stolen goods over the internet.
If you are running a illegal business(the wiseness of its illegality being irrelevant), then you can't be surprised when you run into trouble with the law.
well my problem with that argument is that while the US is currently maintaining that it would be technically legal for an online gambling site to run legally provided they get a state-issued license, they're actually keeping it functionally illegal by not actually issuing the license in any state.
Obviously I'm not saying the government shouldn't crack down on illegally operated online casinos but artificially withholding the issuing of licenses creating a legality loop-hole, simply to crack down on all online casinos seems pretty pants-on-head to me.
You know, money laundering and fraud aren't exactly stuff that should be ignored. This is the FBI doing it's job. If these guys really were involved in such things, they should be prosecuted.
Except that illegal drugs are illegal on the internet or off of it.
Oversight and legislation for online gambling is a great idea, though.
And the oversight should be pretty easy to do, because online gambling sites are already very keen on observing game trends to make sure that, for example, three people don't sit at the same poker table (regardless of where the three people logged in from) and fleece a couple other players for all their money by working together.
edit: wrote gaming when I meant gambling. I really don't think online gaming legislation is very important.
edit: I agree that online gambling sites should be subject to the same taxes and/or integrity audits. Though I know many of the "good" gambling sites will happily advertise the legitimacy of their card shuffling algorithms.
In this case the "Money laundering and fraud" are things which if you or I were to do would be considered "perfectly normal and legal banking activities".
Things like direct depositing to user's accounts, etc. Not exactly high end secret agent shit.
Edit 2: The money laundering and fraud charges were because these companies were doing direct deposits into user bank accounts without explicitly writing the bank a little note each time saying "this is an online casino deposit", thus 'tricking' banks into being complicit in online gambling. Note that this is not illegal in any way for any other business, which is why when you buy porn it says ccbill.com on the bill and not the name of the site.
Edit: To clarify a bit. What the companies were doing is that they set up third party billing companies to handle payments from and to customers. For example, rather than paying Absolute Poker or whoever directly, consumers would pay billingcompanyx, who would then forward proceeds out to the poker company in exchange for a percentage. This is, of course, standard practice for virtually ANY internet commerce, you may be familiar with Paypal, ccbill (who handles the vast majority of porn sites), etc.
Its a bullshit charge. The only reason they're throwing fraud and money laundering in is because gambling is legal in the UK, so that's literally the only possible claim the US has on them.
Most of the US' extradition treaties require that the crime be illegal in both the US and the country the person resides in.
US can't go to the Brits and complain about "illegal online gambling", because it isn't illegal over there. But "fraud" and "money laundering" are illegal over there, so the Americans are hoping that's enough to get the Brits to fork over the guys into American custody.
Yes and no. The money laundering and fraud charges stem from the fact that any and all officially licensed gaming institutions in the US have to file reports with FinCEN and adhear to a lot of regulations put in place by the BSA. To my knowledge none of the major online poker sites follow any such guidelines with their US customers.
As for the government withholding licensing from such sites, it's a rather complex issue. Since every state with legalized gambling has it's own gaming regulatory commision and tax code covering establishments, if you're an online site you'd have to negotiate gaming licenses in every such state that you'd be accepting activity from. And you'd then have to break down all of your transactions by state and report them to FinCEN, each state's gaming commision, the IRS, etc... Not to mention that established gaming locations have state tax liabilities on a per capita basis, which again vary depending on the state they're licensed in.
The thing again is a giant grey area. If I go to Vegas and gamble, they most definitely do not have to follow the regulations of my state. All of these institutions are located in Britain. Now, there's a big precedent for online transactions being regulated in the state or country in which the business is located. For example, mail order companies often have little riders that say "Sales tax added for CA,NC,DE,NY" or something similar. This is because those states are the ones which the company has offices in. For out of state purchases the end user is responsible for reporting the sales for tax and regulatory purposes.
Now that being said, if they opened up holding companies in the US to do business with US banks, which may be the case, then that's certainly over the line and prosecutable. But if they were running holding companies in the UK or somewhere else where gambling is legal, then the onus should be on the US banks to make sure that the money is going somewhere legitimate.
I find it hard to believe that all 3 companies were doing something as stupid as setting up their billing companies on US soil when there's no real compelling reason to do so, but I'll admit that it's possible. I'd still argue that on the giant list of FBI priorities this is so minor that it shouldn't even be on the radar at this point when you have drug cartels actively killing people on US soil.
OK. This is a load of crap.
Personally I think Gambling is stupid and the people who run casino's are pretty much jerks. But they shouldn't be charged for stuff that isn't illegal.
If we were just talking about online purchases and what not that'd be one thing, but when money is actively moving into US accounts from overseas, the IRS, Treasury, and all their branches want documentation on it. While such things are perfectly legal in the UK when talking about UK residents, the same can't be said for US players.
I'm thinking the IRS isn't getting proper win/loss statements from professional online players, nor are big players that keep their money off-shore most of the year filing FBARs. As such, they (i.e. US regulatory brances) have no way of properly tracking an individuals transactions for tax purposes. Since that consitutes fraud and/or tax evasion, it could be grounds for investigation and litigation.