Poker Stars and Full Tilt shot down by DOJ

Banned poker rooms

On April 15th, 2011 the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) made public the charges against the founders of major online poker rooms, accusing them of fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling.

Based on the Illegal Gambling Business Act of 1955 and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 the Department of Justice made various allegations against 11 individuals that represent major poker rooms such as Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker.

The 11 defendants and their poker companies are charged with more than $3 billion penalties, while some of the charges have up to 30 years in prison penalties.

As a response to the charges, Poker Stars and Full Tilt already blocked the access of US players to the real money games and is expected that Absolute Poker to follow soon.

Is online poker legal in US?

There is no specific law that says the online poker to be illegal for US citizens. Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 aims to stop the money transactions between the US players and the online poker sites. This Act does not affect the players but could create problems to the poker sites and online payments companies that intermediate monetary transactions.

Millions of Americans play online poker and this legal action carried out by the Department of Justice creates a wave of uncertainty throughout the whole gambling industry. Under these circumstances more pressure is put upon the Congress to move faster to legalize and regulate online gambling.

Poker rooms allowing Americans

Although three of the major online poker rooms were forced to suspend the real money games for US clients there are still some poker rooms that welcome US players on real money tables.

The poker rooms allowing US citizens to play on real money include Carbon Poker, Meteor Poker, Doyle’s Room and Sportsbook Poker.

The number of poker sites welcoming US clients to play on real money is currently limited, but things are expected to change once the Congress will finally legalize and regulate online poker.