|
 The Black Friday events shook up the online gambling industry and its marks are still visible now, nearly two months later. On Friday 15 April 2011 the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) accused three major poker rooms, Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker of illegal gambling, fraud and money laundering. Their ban account were frozen and their sites and were blocked with no previous warning.
Unfortunately the Black Friday also affected the players that as clients of the three poker rooms found themselves with their money blocked, with no possibility to withdraw them. Later, after intense negotiations DOJ unblocked the domains, the poker rooms agreeing to return the money to their US clients.
DOJ didn’t stop after the Black Friday offensive against online poker rooms. On May 23rd DOJ charged two more poker rooms, Doyles Room and True Poker, and eight online bookmakers with the same charges. New facts come to light as it turns out that the US government created a fake payment processing company that the indicted sites used for transactions. According to the investigators more than $33 million dollars were processed in over 300,000 transactions. The investigation opened by DOJ for online gambling continued and, at the end of July the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) suspended the Full Tilt gambling license. This action is unprecedented and AGCC suggested that the poker room operating worldwide including US, failed to comply with rules imposed by the AGCC license. The online gambling industry is under more pressure than ever. On one side the governments and the regulators try to impose themselves over the gambling sites, while on the other side the poker rooms and the gamblers try to work together in their both interest. Observers and gamblers both are thinking about the same questions: Is it over or it’s just the beginning of a long anti gambling crusade? What’s next? What will it happen with the suspended poker rooms? These questions have only one answer: Only time will tell. |
