PokerStars, Full Tilt, UB and Absolute Poker seized by FBI

The U.S. department of justice has seized the domain names of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UB and Absolute Poker today, Friday April 15, 2011. When trying to access the sites players will now be greeted with the following message.



The U.S. Attorney for New York has also indicted the founders of these sites and charged them with bank fraud, illegal gambling and laundering billions of dollars. The indictment and civil complaint seeks at least $3 billion.

PokerStars has already blocked U.S. players from real money games also.

Full Tilt has now stopped accepting U.S. players as well as outlined in the messages below.





I expect UB and Absolute Poker to follow suit soon as well.

Still no updates from UB and Absolute.

Heres a few articles we've posted about this on the main site:

Full Tilt, PokerStars, UB and Absolute Poker indicted on fraud and money laundering charges

Full Tilt and PokerStars no lnger accepting U.S. players

We'll try and keep everyone up to date as much as possible.

The U.S. Depatment of Justice has released PokerStars' and Full Tilt's domain names and they are working on sending refunds to all players.

You can read an article on this along with statements from Full Tilt and PokerStars HERE

Absolute Poker has finally issued a statement on this matter as shown below.

"Absolute Poker has retained Blank Rome LLP as United States counsel to provide legal advice in relation to civil and criminal matters filed in federal court in Manhattan and made public on April 15, 2011. Absolute Poker is aware that on April 19, 2011, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York entered into separate agreements with FullTilt Poker and PokerStars. These agreements concern the use of the respective Full Tilt Poker - Learn from the Pros and PokerStars - USA domain names. The US Attorney, in a press release dated April 20, 2011, stated that the government is willing to enter the same agreement with Absolute Poker and UB.

"At this time, Absolute Poker's top priority is, and must be, the refund of balances to its and UB's US players. However, given the far-reaching consequences of the US Attorney's actions for Absolute Poker and for the entire poker community, Absolute Poker believes that the responsible course of action is to review with its attorneys the relevant court filings before taking any action.
"Absolute Poker believes that the US Attorney shares the view that refunds to US players are an immediate and pressing concern, and Absolute Poker wishes to make clear that it wants to work cooperatively with the US Attorney to safely and efficiently return its players' funds. To that end, Absolute Poker's counsel has initiated communications with the US Attorney's office and plans to continue proactively advancing those discussions.

"Further information and timely updates will be provided to Absolute Poker/UB's players as we move forward." .