The founders of three of the world’s largest poker websites have been charged by the FBI with the crimes of fraud, and money-laundering. They have also been accused of circumventing the American law. On 17 April, indeed, the FBI decided to suspend the domains of the following websites: Pokerstars, Fulltilt and Absolute Poker. It also seized the companies’ 75 bank accounts in 14 foreign countries, in order to confiscate 3 million dollars. An actual “Black Friday” for the American online gambling operators.
We are now facing an epochal and unexpected decision. As we know, indeed, unlike the European law, the American law has always been less rigid towards this special sector of the economy, which is never in crisis. This change cannot be properly understood without taking a step back. In 2006 George W. Bush got Congress approval for a law against online gambling. Consequently, some important operators in this sector, quoted on the stock exchange, withdrew from the market. Counting on the fact that poker is a so-called “skill game” and not a game of chance, the poker rooms now being investigated seized the opportunity to attack the American market using a trick, that of registering their offices abroad. Besides, according to US attorney Preet Bharara, in order to circumvent the American law forbidding money transfer for online games, these poker rooms would arrange for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments for merchandise such as jewellery and golf balls. From the investigation it emerges that, later on, large banks stopped this money flow, closing their channels. So, in 2009 the three economic giants started to concentrate these payments in small credit institutions in difficulty. They granted them financial support in exchange for superficial control procedures. It has also been discovered that poker rooms financed the election campaigns of some American politicians, a number of which are Democrats.
If the investigation went on, it might produce a double effect. On the one hand the three giants would experience serious economic damage and, on the other, the European Countries (included Italy) would find themselves in the embarrassing situation of hosting subsidiaries related to parent bodies whose managers are wanted by Interpol, accused and convicted of money laundering.
On the inside: