In a recent press release issued by the US Attorney of New York, the government states it is working with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to facilitate withdrawals for U.S. players.
In the “Domain-name use agreement”, the control of domain names will be returned to the sites in order for them to process withdrawals to US players. To comply, PokerStars and Full Tilt must prohibit any real-money play and not allow any further deposits. The agreement explicitly states that they are not prohibited in offering real-money games to players outside of the United States.
Under the terms of the agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, the companies agreed that they would not allow for, facilitate, or provide the ability for players located in the United States to engage in playing online poker for “real money” or any other thing of value. The agreements allow for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to use the pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com domain names to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in account with the companies. The deposit of funds by U.S. players is expressly prohibited. In addition, the agreements do not prohibit, and, in fact, expressly allow for, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to provide for, and facilitate, players outside of the United States to engage in playing online poker for real money.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said they have made the same offer to Absolute Poker, but no agreement has yet been made.
Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney who seized the domain names last week, said in a news release that he expects the poker companies to return the money.
How soon that could happen is up to the poker sites, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
