When all was said and done about the debacle between the three big poker sites, one question stood out like a blazing neon sign: How would the US players get their money back? Well, Poker Sites assured the players that they would but nobody knew exactly how it would happen. Now, the Department of Justice and these poker sites have reached an agreement on how exactly things would proceed.
The Department of Justice’s Announcement
The ones really caught in the crossfire between the online poker sites and the DOJ are the players. It’s probably a small mercy that the DOJ has finally thought about how to take care of the people they’ve actually vowed to protect in the first place. The DOJ has given back PokerStars and Full Tilt their .com sites, opening a channel for these sites to pay back their US players. Full Tilt and PokerStars had to sign an agreement that they would leave the US market and stop accepting further deposits from US players. Of course, these two sites have already done that ever since the whole issue exploded, so that’s not really anything new. However, that doesn’t really end the issue. Full Tilt has released a statement that there are no “authorized US payment channels” by which they could pay the refunds.
Also, with the government freezing the bank accounts of these online poker sites, and it’s generally assumed that the players’ money were kept in these accounts. So how exactly will the online poker sites pay when the DOJ still won’t hand over the players’ accounts?
Many Holes still Left
With PokerStars and Full Tilt at least making agreements with the DOJ, it made the fact that those in the CEREUS Network have yet to cozy up to the US justice system. What are UB.com and Absolute Poker going to do with the players’ money? Those in Full Tilt and PokerStars aren’t exactly too afraid, but those in the CEREUS Network are probably shaking in their boots. These sites don’t exactly have the best rep, and it was a running joke in the online poker world until the threat of getting duped once again got real. Of course, the CEREUS Network is open to cut a deal with the DOJ anytime they want to, so hopefully they’re going to do the right thing and prove themselves to be as reliable and trustworthy as they promised to be after the Superuser Scandal.
It’s probably not helping their case too that they’re still letting US players play poker at their sites even though they’re not accepting deposits, transfers, or withdrawals.
The safest place to play online poker now
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