Three largest online poker sites indicted and shut down by FBI

The Los Angeles Times ^ | 4/15/2011 | Nathaniel Popper

[NYRepublican72]

The founders of the three largest online poker sites were indicted by the FBI on Friday in what could serve as a death blow to the thriving industry.

Eleven executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were charged with bank fraud and money laundering in an indictment unsealed in a Manhattan court. Two of the executives were arrested on Friday morning in Utah and Nevada. Federal agents are searching for the others.

Prosecutors are seeking to immediately shut down the sites and to eventually send the executives to jail and to recover $3 billion from the companies. By Friday afternoon Full Tilt Poker’s site displayed a message explaining that “this domain name has been seized by the F.B.I. pursuant to an Arrest Warrant.”

[NYRepublican72]

I blame Obama. His justice department has selectively pursued certain law breakers based on his own political agenda.

I guarantee that he’s clearing out the playing field so that he can have his own cronies and donors next in line when crooked Harry Reid and Barney Frank pass legislation allowing online poker.

It is “the Chicago way” of doing things.

[CMAC51]

Plus, the fun of poker is playing the person at the table, right? It's an especially social game, in that regard.

The fun is in the intellectual challange of the game. With online poker you can play when you want for as long as you want. There is always a game. You don't have to wait until you can get 5 or 6 of your buddies together.

I have played enough hours on Poker stars to feel fairly confident there was no funny business. Why scam when they make their money raking the pot. Volume breeds profits. Confidence breeds volume.

With violence on the Mexican border, millions of illegals, drug problems, gang violence, a national debt that is going to bury my grandchildren, the Feds decide the best way to spend my tax dollar is to save me from losing 5 or 6 buck a week at a poker table.

[OldDeckHand]

"Why scam when they make their money raking the pot."

I didn't mean to imply that the hosts were scamming the game. What I meant (and what I thought I said), is that there's virtually no computer system in the world that is immune to being hacked.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I am going through this argument with a friend of mine right now. He's an online poker player. Hates Bush, mostly I believe because he's a militant atheist and Bush was an avowed Christian. Buys into he whole “Bush is a war criminal” thing.

Now, if Bush is responsible for everything done in Abu Ghraib or Guanantimo, how does Obama get a pass when his Department of Justice takes this action? His excuse is “I just don't think Obama was aware of this specific move, among many others, that the executive branch takes.”

In fairness I did point out that the Republican Congress passed the legislation that allowed the Feds to do this. But I don't see how one can exclude the President from ridicule here. Frankly, politicians of all stripes are way to anxious to tell us what to do, IMHO.