The U.S. has seized several poker websites after charging a number of key industry players — including Full Tilt and PokerStars — with bank fraud, illegal gambling and laundering billions of dollars.
The domain names of the three biggest sites to be hit by the fraud investigation have, however, been returned to their owners temporarily so they can return funds to legitimate U.S. players.
In total, 11 people have been charged, including PokerStars’ Isai Scheinberg, Full Tilt Poker’s Ray Bitar and Absolute Poker’s Scott Tom.
All the firms’ websites were redirected to a landing page created by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI.
U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara said: “No individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained, and each implicated poker company has at all times been free to reimburse any player’s deposited funds.
“In fact, this office expects the companies to return the money that U.S. players entrusted to them.”
Recently, the Slots.com domain name sold for $6.3 million, making the gambling site one of the most expensive pieces of online real estate in the world.