Online Gambling Accounts Frozen

June 10, 2009

The online gambling community is in an uproar today based on a move made by federal prosecutors out of Southern New York. They informed Citibank, Wells Fargo and two other smaller banks that they were to seize the online gambling accounts of poker players and they have complied with that order. There is more than $33 million at stake here, and it affects more than 27,000 online gambling players.

Poker players have long said that they were exempt from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act because they are not gambling. They say that poker playing is a game of skill and therefore should not be lumped into online gambling. They say that it is not illegal to participate in online gambling if you are playing poker.

However, it would seem that the federal government is looking at it from another viewpoint and has made their first big move against the online gambling community since the UIGEA was passed. They have frozen the accounts of those companies that paid out the winnings to the poker players. The online gambling community had no idea that this was even going on, and it wasn�t until checks started bouncing that they found out.

Online gambling patrons have been complaining that they have not been able to withdraw funds from their accounts over the past week and now it would appear this is why. Many are confused at the move especially since it seemed that the government was really moving toward legalizing online gambling.









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