This is important news for poker players throughout America. Two of the online poker rooms who had their domains seized by the FBI on Friday, April 15th, will be allowed to reopen those domain names in order to facilitate allowing players in the US to withdraw their funds and close out their accounts. The two poker rooms that have reached an agreement with the FBI are PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. I’m reading this news on the Dow Jones site, which I am hoping is a reliable site, because it would be scary if they aren’t. But the neither of the sites is back up yet. Also, Absolute Poker & UB.com apparently have the option to reach the same agreement with the US government.
This news will at least be some sort of slim assurance to US poker players who have money in accounts to the seized sites. Most players know that the sites are not completely out of operation. Full Tilt Poker has changed its domain name to www.fulltiltpoker.co.uk and is open to players outside the United States. A visit to the new site brings up a message of support for poker players and the Full Tilt CEO facing charges from the FBI. The site will no longer allow real money play from the US but will provide peer-to-peer support.
Meanwhile PokerStars has moved to http://www.pokerstars.eu/ and is no longer accepting players from the US. Amusingly (well, perhaps not if you had money in the site) PokerStars is still advertising itself as the “World’s Largest Poker Site.” Also PokerStars has apparently taken the stance of not mentioning the shutdown, arrests or loss of US players on its site. Their “blog” actually features a story on the royal wedding and cucumber sandwiches, but no info on the Black Friday shut down. Hey, if they pretend it didn’t happen, maybe it’ll all go back to normal.