PokerStars To Confiscate Funds Of US Players Accessing Site

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Tuesday, August 19th, 2014 | Written by Shane Larson

Following the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006, PartyPoker promptly left the unregulated US poker market after which PokerStars took over as the country’s biggest unlicensed operator, since growing into the huge poker room it is today. Eventually, PokerStars’ high risk strategy caught up with it and in 2012 the online behemoth paid $731 million to the Justice Department to end an alleged bank fraud and money laundering lawsuit.

Ever since, PokerStars has been trying to regain access to the huge US iGaming market, and in order to maintain its new, squeaky clean reputation, has now warned it will confiscate the funds of any US players it discovers gambling on its site.

PokerStars not available to US players

After the FBI seized its domain on April 15, 2011, PokerStars officially withdrew from the US market and issued a clear message stating it would no longer accept US players. Nevertheless, American players tempted by the opportunity to play on the world’s most popular poker site have still been able to use various methods to circumvent restrictions and access PokerStars whilst disguising their geolocations.

Nevertheless, PokerStars has not been oblivious to their attempts and since Black Friday has thrown numerous US players off the site, and confiscated their “net profits.” Talking about its policy to date, PokerStars Head of Public Relations Michael Josem recently commented on the Two Plus Two forum:

“As players may be aware, on April 19, 2011, PokerStars agreed with the US Department of Justice to not allow players located in the United States to play online poker for real money. As part of that agreement, the DOJ appointed a Monitor to ensure that we did this. As a result of this agreement, PokerStars introduced a whole range of complementary measures to prevent players from accessing our services from the United States – and to take action against players who tried to circumvent those restrictions.”

Punishments increased for US gamers

Now PokerStars has announced it has increased the punishment for those US players accessing its site to include a complete confiscation of their funds, rather than their previous net winnings only policy. The only exception to the rule is if the player is able to convince PokerStars they were being non-malicious and had no prior knowledge of the site’s US player restriction. Continuing his posting on the Two Plus Two forum, Michael Josem, wrote:

“In addition, earlier this year, we increased the severity of our punishments because it no longer credible for the vast majority of players to claim that they didn’t know that they can’t play from the US. Our previous policy was, by default, to only confiscate net winnings (except when we were convinced the player was malicious, in which case we would confiscate their whole balance). Over recent months, by default, we have been confiscating the whole balance (except when we are convinced that the player was non-malicious and had no knowledge of this restrictions, in which case we only confiscate net winnings). We made this decision earlier this year, and it this decision has no relationship to any other recent announcements.”

PokerStars set for US return?

In spite of Josem’s last comment stating that the increased punishment had “no relationship to any other recent announcements,” there can be little doubt PokerStars has decided to pursue more draconian measures in order to get back into the good graces of the U.S. government as it seeks a return to the country’s regulated iGaming markets.

Currently, PokerStars is in the process of finalizing an online gambling license in New Jersey, and if all goes well the site may make its debut as soon as October 1st, according to an unnamed source talking to NJPokerOnline. Therefore, the last thing PokerStars wants is to attract any criticism which might negatively affect negotiations at such a delicate stage of its application proceedings.

The Amaya Gaming factor

Furthermore, Canada’s Amaya Gaming Group Inc. (AYA) recently purchased PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker’s parent company, Rational Group, for $4.9 billion and so now being owned by a publicly traded company means the sites operations are likely to be subjected to even more scrutiny than ever before. Therefore, PokerStars will do all it can to ensure Americans do not to play on its site.

Therefore, US players be warned. If you do not want to lose your account balances on PokerStars then wait until the site obtains a license to operate in one of the country’s regulated markets. As mentioned, PokerStars could be available to New Jersey residents in just a few weeks and the site is then sure to make a play for the Nevada and Delaware markets soon after, especially if the previous “bad actor” label associated with its previous owners the Scheinberg is now viewed as defunct.