According to the Times, "Prosecutors charged that the operators of Full
Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker tricked banks into processing
billions of dollars in payments from customers in the United States.
They said the actions violated a federal law passed in 2006 that
prohibits illegal Internet gambling operations from accepting payments."
"The online poker operators sought to avoid detection by banks and legal
authorities by funneling payments through fictitious online businesses
that purported to sell jewelry, golf balls and other items, according to
the indictment. It says that when some banks processed the payments,
they were unaware of the real nature of the business, but the site
operators also bribed banks into accepting the payments."
Further, "experts in gambling law said that the forceful action raises
tricky questions about gambling laws and the government's reach."
The government also is seeking to recover $3 billion from the companies,
reported the Los Angeles Times while two of the eleven people charged
were arrested in the US. The remaining defendants are abroad with
federal agents seeking the assistance of Interpol to capture the
remaining defendants.
The Times also reported that "ComScore, a company that measures Internet
traffic, said that in March, Full Tilt Poker had 2.6 million visitors
from the United States, PokerStars had 1.9 million and Absolute Poker
had 1.3 million. ComScore also reported that 1.4 million people visited
Ultimate Bet, a site that the federal indictment says joined forces last
year with Absolute Poker. Those were the nation's four most popular
poker sites, ComScore said."
The tactics used, that is seizing domain names, are the same as those
used last year against websites accused of copyright violations. As the
Times notes, the tactic may only be temporarily effective as websites
can re-establish themselves using a country code domain, for example,
and be out the reach of US law enforcement.
For more detailed reports on the domain name seizures from which information for the above story was sourced, see:
www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/technology/16poker.html
www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-poker-busts-20110416,0,308055.story
latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/04/full-tilt-poker-fbi.html