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On Friday, an indictment against the founders of online poker's 'big three' was unsealed by federal authorities. According to MarketWatch.com, the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker were indicted on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling. There were also restraining orders issued against over 75 bank accounts used by the online poker companies and their payment processors, as well as five Internet domain names.
The U.S. Department of Justice released a press release on the indictment, and in it, 11 defendants are named: Isai Scheinberg, Raymond Bitar, Scott Tom, Brent Beckley, Nelson Burtnick, Paul Tate, Ryan Lang, Bradley Franzen, Ira Rubin, Chad Elie, and John Campos. Scheinberg and Tate are identified in the indictment as representing PokerStars, Bitar and Burtnick of representing Full Tilt Poker and Tom and Beckley of representing Absolute Poker. Lang, Rubin, Franzen and Elie are identified as people who allegedly ran payment processors.
The charges are based on the Illegal Gambling Business Act of 1955 and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. These are the same charges previously brought against payment processors used by the sites that have been shut down.
The allegations center around poker companies allegedly using fraudulent methods to circumvent federal law and trick U.S. banks into processing payments after the passage of UIGEA.
In the press release, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said, 'As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits. Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from their profits.'
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk said, 'These defendants, knowing full well that their business with U.S. customers and U.S. banks was illegal, tried to stack the deck. They lied to banks about the true nature of their business. Then, some of the defendants found banks willing to flout the law for a fee. The defendants bet the house that they could continue their scheme, and they lost.'
At least $3 billion in civil money-laundering penalties from both the poker companies and defendants is being sought. According to the indictment, Campos and Elie were arrested Friday morning in Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada, respectively. Franzen is expected to appear in court for his arraignment on April 19, 2011. Those who are not in the U.S. — Scheinberg, Bitar, Burtnick, Tate, Tom, Beckley, Rubin, and Lang — have not been arrested, but the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York is working with foreign law enforcement agencies and Interpol to arrest the defendants.
Read the indictment. Thanks to Pokerati.
11:55 a.m. PDT:PokerNews has attempted to contact all three online poker sites, and thus far, only UB/AP has replied and has no comment at this time.
12:26 p.m. PDT: PokerStars has blocked U.S. players from real money games.
1:00 p.m. PDT: If there is any bright side to this black Friday, it could be that this DOJ affront makes it clear to Congressional leaders like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that federal legislation to officially legalize online poker must move quickly.
“At Safe and Secure Initiative, we've always fought to give every American the right to gamble online,” said Michael Waxman, executive director of the industry trade association Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative. “Since the government is seeking to crack down on the freedom of the internet, we need Congress to act more than ever now to legalize and regulate the activity. This is a major development that will bring more attention to this issue. I hope it encourages Congress to move more quickly, especially as concerned Americans look for answers and a solution.”
It could also spark online poker players, with their livelihood attacked, to band together more than ever before and make their voices heard.
“Clearly there are millions of Americans who enjoy gambling online,” Waxman said. “If the opportunity to engage in the activity is taken away, they should focus their attention on encouraging their elected representatives to act on this issue and regulate online gambling.”
1:25 p.m. PDT: “On behalf of the millions of poker players across the country, we are shocked at the action taken by the U.S. Department of Justice today against online poker companies and will continue to fight for Americans’ right to participate in the game they enjoy,' said former Senator Alfonse D'Amato, chairman of the Poker Players Alliance. 'Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such. We are currently gathering all of the information around today’s announcement and will offer detailed analysis when the full facts become available.”
1:57 p.m. PDT:PokerNews has contacted Bodog for a comment on the recent events, and according to a Bodog representative it is 'business as usual at Bodog for U.S. customers.'
2:00 p.m. PDT: The Courier-Mail newspaper in Australia is reporting that it is believed that Daniel Tzvetkoff is assisting federal lawyers in the Southern District of New York, the branch of the DOJ behind today's affront. Tzvetkoff was arrested April 16 of last year in Las Vegas and charged with the same counts the site owners are being charged with today for allegedly processing $523 million in Internet gambling earnings through his payment processing company Intabill. Though he was originally denied bail as a flight risk, the Courier-Mail reports he was released on bail in August after cooperating with federal authorities, and is living in a secret location in New York City. The arrests today of the people who allegedly ran payment processors could be a move to get more people knowledgeable of the business transactions of the Internet poker sites to co-operate against the sites.
Full Tilt Poker Shut Down Free
2:40 p.m. PDT: The 11 defendants listed above are each being charged with four counts — violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, operation of an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. These charges can carry hefty penalties. The maximum penalty for violation of the UIGEA and operating a gambling business is 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss for each charge, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud is 30 years in prison and a fine of $1 million or twice the gross gain or loss, and for money laundering conspiracy is 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 or twice the amount laundered.
5:30 p.m. PDT: According to a tweet from Alexandra Berzon, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal: 'Fertitta spokeswoman said the partnership with Full Tilt - announced late March - had 'expired.'
Also Associated Press reporter Oskar Garcia tweeted: 'Wynn pulls out of alliance with PokerStars, while Fertitta's says theirs was contingent on Full Tilt getting a gambling license.'
6:52 p.m. PDT:: Full Tilt Poker has shut down real money gaming in the U.S. stating, 'Unfortunately, as a result of this action, Full Tilt Poker has decided that it must suspend “real money” play in the United States until this case is resolved. However, Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide peer-to-peer online poker services outside of the United States.'
The release from Full Tilt also said 'Mr. Bitar and Full Tilt Poker believe online poker is legal – a position also taken by some of the best legal minds in the United States. Full Tilt Poker is, and has always been committed to preserving the integrity of the game and abiding by the law.'
Ray Bitar, who was listed on the indictment added “I am surprised and disappointed by the government’s decision to bring these charges. I look forward to Mr. Burtnick’s and my exoneration.'
9:52 p.m. PDT:: PokerStars' first statement has come via a notice that pops up on their poker client. The core message, is that player balances are safe.
'As you may have heard, we have had to suspend real money poker services to people based in the US due to legal developments there. The developments are confined to the US and do not have any impact on your ability to continue using our services. Please be assured player balances are safe. There is no cause for concern. For all customers outside the US it is business as usual.'
'The PokerStars website has been moved to www.pokerstars.eu and our support email address is now [email protected] We apologise to our players for any inconvenience caused by this disruption. Please be aware that we are currently experiencing a very high volume of emails, so response times are delayed. We will answer player emails as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter.'
April 16, 2011 9:00 a.m. PDT: We've contacted Moneybookers for a statement regarding the Friday's indictment, and we've been told that, “Moneybookers is not part of this investigation and have not been approached by any authority. As a general principal we never process transactions for online gambling purposes including poker for US citizens.'
April 16, 2011 10:40 a.m. PDT:PokerNews has just received confirmation from a spokesperson at Full Tilt Poker that in light of recent events, the Onyx Cup poker series has been cancelled.
April 16, 2011 11:10 a.m. PDT: As of now, the ESPN's poker page has removed all PokerStars advertising.
April 16, 2011 2:50 p.m. PDT:John Pappas, Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance, recently released the following statement.
'Millions of Americans across the country today are outraged over the U.S. Department of Justice’s clear attack on Internet poker. While the government’s focus may be on the companies who operate these games, this is plain and simple a declaration of war on poker players and poker players’ freedoms. Not only are the over 10 million online poker players left without a place to play the game they enjoy, and from which many earn their livelihood, but they also have concerns over the availability of their funds. The PPA believes that no players’ money should be jeopardized by this prosecution.
'Let me be clear, online poker is not a crime and the honest poker players across the country will not stand to be restricted from one of America’s greatest pastimes. On behalf of over one million members, the PPA is working hard to protect the interests of our players and is committed to U.S. citizens’ right to play online poker.'
April 16, 2011 5:00 p.m. PDT: At 2:02 p.m. PDT, the Las Vegas Sun reported that former U.S. attorney Greg Brower has called for both state and federal probes of PokerStars political activities. Here's what Brower had to say.
'In light of the recently announced federal indictment of several PokerStars principals, as well as the revelation of PokerStars-sponsored foreign trips by Nevada Legislators, and news of nearly $300,000 in political contributions by PokerStars to Nevada legislators who are currently considered proposed legislation introduced on PokerStars’ behalf, I am calling for federal and state investigations into PokerStars’ political activities in Nevada. The fact that a foreign company which has been charged with operating a criminal enterprise could play such a large role in Nevada campaigns is troubling. Federal law clearly prohibits foreign contributions to federal, state, and local campaigns. Nevada law is not so clear, but should be. I am reviewing this issue with legislative counsel and plan to introduce legislation, if necessary, to ensure that any loopholes in our state law are closed immediately. In addition, I will be discussing this matter with both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Nevada enforcement authorities to determine whether federal and state investigations into PokerStars’ activities in Nevada are warranted. Nevada’s gaming industry and regulatory regime are the very best in the world, and it is critical that we take swift action to ensure that we maintain the unquestioned integrity of both.'
April 18, 2011 10:10 a.m. PDT: According to Bloomberg.com, defendant Bradley Franzen surrendered to the FBI Monday morning in New York. He pleaded 'not guilty' in front of the U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas on Monday and was released on $200,000 bond that was secured by his parents' home and their signatures.
April 18, 2011 11:00 a.m. PDT: CNBC's Darren Rovelltweeted a statement from ESPN: 'We are making efforts to remove related advertising & programming pending further review.' Also, according to an article from USA Today, the NAPT on ESPN presented by PokerStars.net will not air Monday night as previously planned.
April 18, 2011 11:05 a.m. PDT:PokerNews has confirmed with a World Series of Poker spokesperson that the 2011 World Series of Poker will air on ESPN and the 2010-2011 WSOP Circuit will be aired on Versus.
April 18, 2011 2:30 p.m. PDT:PokerNews has confirmed via a source close to the shows that both the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge and PokerStars.net Big Game have been cancelled.
April 18, 2011 3:20 p.m. PDT: In an interview to the TheHill.com regarding Friday's indictments, Barney Frank said, 'Go after the people responsible for empty houses, not full houses. I'm not saying violate the law, but to give this priority in law enforcement over some other things I think is a terrible idea and I think the administration is wrong on this.'
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April 18, 2011 4:45 p.m. PDT: According to an article from the Las Vegas Review Journal, the members of a PokerStars funded Committee for Political Action in Nevada that received campaign contributions from PokerStars last year, totaling close to $300,000, will return the money.
'As soon as we realized that there was a question, that this wasn't a U.S. owned company and was a foreign owned company we returned the money,' Assembly speaker John Oceguera said. Oceguera was given $10,000 by the PokerStars PAC.
As more information becomes clear, PokerNews will be there to bring it to you, so keep it locked on PokerNews.com and follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.
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This Friday marks the fifth anniversary of the most memorable Friday in many poker players' memories — Black Friday, or the day everything changed as far as online poker in the United States is concerned.
On that day — April 15, 2011 — the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a 52-page indictment against top executives of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker, as well as a civil complaint against those companies. Those named in the indictment faced years in prison while the civil complaint sought $3 billion in assets from the sites. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker immediately stopped serving U.S. players, with Absolute Poker and its sister site UltimateBet (of the Cereus Network) following suit afterwards.
Here's a look back to what things were like before Black Friday as well as some of what has happened over the last five years as a result of the events of that day.
Before Black Friday
The story of Black Friday is long and complicated, stretching back in part to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that was signed into law by then President George W. Bush in October 2006. While not specifically prohibiting American players from playing online poker, the UIGEA did outlaw businesses from transferring funds to and from gambling sites. Final regulations weren’t formulated until November 2008 and didn't go into effect until Jan. 19, 2009 (the last full day of of Bush's presidency). Compliance wasn't required until December 2009, however, with another bill later introduced that would delay the requirement to begin complying to June 1, 2010.
While some sites responded to the passage of the UIGEA by pulling out of the U.S., others continued to allow Americans to deposit, withdraw, and play, with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and UltimateBet the most popular among U.S. players.
When Black Friday dawned, the poker world continued along as normal. According to the tracking site PokerScout, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker continued their status as the top two sites in terms of traffic by a healthy margin, with partypoker and the iPoker Network battling back and forth as the next two in line and the Cereus Network hovering inside the top 10.
The PokerStars-sponsored North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun festival had just concluded a couple of days earlier, and the poker world was still buzzing about Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier each pulling off back-to-back victories in Uncasville, with Selbst repeating as NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event winner and Mercier winning the High Roller Bounty Shootout there as he had done the previous year. Meanwhile the NAPT — then moving through its Season 2 — was planning ahead for more U.S. stops.
Speaking of planning ahead, online poker bills were a hot topic with many states considering such legislation and there having been a lot of focus on a possible federal bill during the lame duck session that closed 2010. Alliances had begun to be appear between the big sites and brick-and-mortar groups, including one between Fertitta Interactive (owners of Station Casinos) and Full Tilt Poker and another recently publicized one between Wynn Resorts and PokerStars. Such 'joint ventures' were contigent on future, favorable legislation in the U.S. regarding online poker, and had everyone starting to wonder what might happen next.
The poker world was further occupied by the second installment of the 'durrrr' Challenge between Tom Dwan and Daniel 'Jungleman' Cates, which had been intermittently providing excitement over the previous seven-plus months. Just a few months before at the end of 2010, Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth had ended long tenures as UltimateBet-sponsored pros. The remaining representatives of Cereus Network sites were fending off ongoing questions about earlier scandals, with Joe Sebok and Prahlad Friedman — who surprisingly signed on as a UltimateBet sponsored pro in January 2011 after having been cheated on the site before — doing what they could to convince players to deposit on the new 'UB.'
Televised poker shows like High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark had never been more popular. With that season of High Stakes Poker sponsored by PokerStars and Poker After Dark continuing to be sponsored by Full Tilt Poker, tensions rose regarding a site's sponsored pros being allowed to appear on the other site’s show, an issue that seemed at the time like a problem that mattered a lot to players and viewers alike.
Priorities were about to change in a big way.
April 15, 2011: The Lights Go Out
It was early afternoon on the East Coast and not quite lunch time out West when the first reports of the indictment and civil complaint began to circulate. Not only were the sites charged with violating the UIGEA, but additional charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling helped clarify the gravity of the situation, as did restraining orders against 75 bank accounts used by the sites and the seizure of five related domain names.
That morning two of the 11 defendents named in the indictment — John Campos (part-owner of an involved bank) and Chad Elie (payment processor) — were arrested, with another, Bradley Franzen (also a payment processor), having indicated an intention to turn himself in early the following week. The other eight defendants — Isai Scheinberg (PokerStars founder), Ray Bitar (CEO of Tiltware), Scott Tom (part-owner of Absolute Poker), Brent Beckley (payments director at AP), Nelson Burtnick (payments director at Tiltware), Paul Tate (payments director at PokerStars), Ryan Lang (payment processor), and Ira Rubin (payment processor) — were all outside the U.S.
Players visiting the sites' dot-coms were greeted with ominous-looking seizure notices appearing under the FBI and DOJ seals. By mid-afternoon PokerStars had blocked U.S. players from real-money games, with Full Tilt Poker doing so a few hours later. Soon after that a spokesperson from Feritta announced its partnership with Full Tilt Poker had already expired, while the Associated Press reported Wynn Resorts had likewise ended its alliance with PokerStars.
That evening both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker issued statements explaining that while U.S. players were shut out, it was business as usual for those playing from other countries. 'Please be assured player balances are safe,' added PokerStars in its statement. By contrast, Absolute Poker and UB both remained silent on the matter, with U.S. players in fact able to continue to play on their sites.
April 16, 2011: Anybody Remember the Onyx Cup?
The next day, Full Tilt Poker announced the cancellation of the Onyx Cup, a six-event series of high-stakes tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $100,000 to $300,000 that had just been introduced a month before.
ESPN jettisoned all poker-related ads from its site, and soon would announce it had cancelled all of its planned-for coverage of NAPT events, with PokerStars likewise announcing the cancellation of the tour.
April 18, 2011: Court Dates and Cancellations
On the following Monday, Franzen surrended to authorities in New York and was released on bail, with Elie and Campos likewise released following initial court appearances.
On that day it was also confirmed that the PokerStars.net Million Dollar Challenge and PokerStars.net Big Game had both been cancelled.
April 20, 2011: The Dot-Coms Return
PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker both regained their dot-com domain names after striking deals with the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, a development that encouraged U.S. players regarding the withdrawal of their funds from the sites.
In a press release, the U.S. Attorney's Office added how the 'Government stands to enter the same agreement with Absolute Poker if it so chooses.' Both Absolute and UB continued to operate on new dot-eu domains.
April 21, 2011: Absolute Rubbish
Absolute Poker finally issued its first statement regarding the indictment and civil complaint, noting how it would be consulting with its lawyers before entering into any agreements with the U.S. government, and adding that 'Absolute Poker's top priority is, and must be, the refund of balances to its and UB's U.S. players.'
April 25, 2011: The Hopeful PPA
While the Poker Players Alliance issued a statement hopeful that Congress would be inspired by the developments of Black Friday to act positively toward online poker legislation going forward, defendant Ira Rubin was arrested in Guatemala.
April 26, 2011: PokerStars Payments (Already!)
Just a week-and-a-half after Black Friday, U.S. players were able to begin the process of withdrawing their balances from PokerStars.
A couple of days later 'FTPDoug', a Full Tilt Poker representative, began a thread on Two Plus Two to answer player questions and report the site was 'diligently working on return of U.S. Players funds which is a top priority.'
May 2011: Cereus Trouble
The first half of May saw Blanca Gaming of Antigua, parent company to Absolute Poker and UB, announcing its intention to file for bankruptcy. Not long after that, 11 U.S.-based sponsored pros were laid off by the two sites, including Sebok and Friedman.
Then on May 10, 2011, the two Cereus sites did finally reach an agreement with the DOJ to 'provide all necessary assurances that third parties may work with Absolute Poker to facilitate the return of funds, currently held by third-party processors, to players located in the U.S.'
The agreement also involved assurances from the Cereus sites that U.S. players would not be able to continue depositing and playing on the sites — something that had still been possible to do for nearly a month after post-Black Friday. (In fact, U.S. players would still be able to get onto the sites in the following days, even after Cereus introduced a new system to block them.)
Over on Two Plus Two, 'FTPDoug' continued to promise the 'orderly return of U.S. player funds.'
On May 21, 2011 the final new episode of High Stakes Poker aired, with the announcement coming in December there would be no further shows produced.
June-August 2011: Full Tilt Poker Goes Dark
The next big development came on June 29, 201,1 when the Aldernay Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) suspended Full Tilt Poker's license to operate and the site suddenly shut down worldwide. The next day came reports of both a class-action lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker by players demanding their funds and a rumor of European group of investors looking to purchase the operator and help U.S. players recover their funds.
The rest of the summer would be punctuated by continued stories of possible investors buying Full Tilt Poker and more explanations from the site's representatives about why players were unable to access their funds.
September 2011: A 'Ponzi Scheme'
On Sept. 20, 2011, came the biggest Black Friday aftershock when the DOJ amended the Black Friday complaint to include allegations that Full Tilt Poker and its board members, including CEO Bitar (already named in the original indictment and complaint), Howard Lederer, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson, and Rafe Furst had defrauded players, and that Full Tilt Poker 'was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme.' The amendment detailed how Full Tilt Poker owed approximately $390 million to players worldwide, including about $150 million to American players, while having only about $60 million on hand in its accounts.
Over the next week-and-a-half, the AGCC would revoke Full Tilt Poker's license altogether, the DOJ released an additional statement regarding player funds and its intention to try to help facilitate 'the return of forfeited funds to victims of the alleged fraud,' and the site-sponsored Poker After Dark was cancelled.
October 2011-March 2012: What's to Come of Full Tilt Poker?
Over the following months, the Full Tilt Poker story would be dominated by an effort by the French investment firm Groupe Bernard Tapie to purchase the site once it forfeited its remaining assets to the U.S. government. A deal would in fact be signed, and Full Tilt Poker's remaining assets were turned over to the DOJ.
That provided plenty to talk about for forum posters, some of whom were also reporting by mid-October that the cashier would no longer open on either Absolute Poker or UB.
Online poker's future in the U.S. appeared especially dim, but a flicker of hope appeared in December 2011 when the Nevada Gaming Commission approved regulations for intrastate online poker in the Silver State.
April-July 2012: Tapie Taps Out; Bitar's Battle
Shortly after the one-year anniversary of Black Friday passed, the three-way negotiations between the DOJ, Full Tilt Poker, and Groupe Bernard Tapie at last fell through, with the French group citing 'unresolvable' legal complications and a failure to agree on a player repayment plan as having nixed the deal.
Then — after issuing a public apology back in March — in early July, Ray Bitar surrendered to U.S. authorities. He'd eventually enter a guilty plea the following spring, with the plea bargain (and a health condition said to warrant a heart transplant) enabling him to avoid jail time while giving up assets rumored to include several homes and $40 million in cash. (Photos of Bitar's million-dollar wedding last month suggest he may have since recovered, both physically and financially.)
As far as the other Black Friday defendants are concerned, all but Scheinberg, Tate, and Tom would ultimately face prison sentences ranging from a few months to three years.
July-December 2012: PokerStars Buys, Reopens Former Rival
Rumors about possible negotiations involving PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and the DOJ had only started to surface when a settlement was announced on July 31, 2012, permitting PokerStars to acquire Full Tilt Poker's assets with PokerStars in turn forfeiting $547 million to the U.S. government. PokerStars also agreed to make available all outstanding balances to non-U.S. Full Tilt Poker players within three months, with a plan begun as well to repay U.S. players their FTP balances. As part of the deal, founder Isai Scheinberg agreed to step away from his role with PokerStars within 45 days.
But Full Tilt Poker wasn't out of the woods just yet, as the DOJ would file a Second Amended Civil Complaint in September introducing new forfeiture charges against Lederer and Bitar. After a year-and-a-half of silence, Lederer would speak at length to PokerNews about what led to Black Friday and Full Tilt Poker's management thereafter in a seven-part series titled The Lederer Files.
Lederer would settle his civil case in December.
In late September 2012, PokerStars announced plans to reopen Full Tilt Poker, and on Nov. 6, 2012, the site was back online (for players outside the U.S., of course).
At the time of PokerStars acquisition of Full Tilt Poker in the summer of 2012, a request for a settlement agreement between the DOJ and Absolute Poker/UB was initiated, and in August 2012 news arrived that the sites' remaining assets were being forfeited to the U.S. government. Alas for players on Absolute and UB, with the sites' parent company having already declared bankruptcy long before, there weren't any funds with which to repay them, and today — five years later — the funds remain lost.
2013: Nevada, New Jersey, and Delaware
While PokerStars continued to thrive globally and Full Tilt 2.0 operated at a much more modest pace than in its previous incarnation, legal and regulated online poker finally returned to the United States more than two years after Black Friday.
With many entities having obtained licenses in Nevada to start online poker sites, Ultimate Poker beat them all to the starting line by launching on April 30. Among those following their footsteps was WSOP.com who after going live in Nevada in September, would move ahead of Ultimate Poker traffic-wise just a couple of months later.
Both New Jersey and Delaware would follow Nevada's lead to pass online gambling legislation. By the end of 2013, online gambling had only been up and running in New Jersey for just over a month — with Ultimate Poker and WSOP.com among the more than half-dozen sites — and over 125,000 accounts had already been created.
2014: Enter Amaya
By the end of February 2014 — nearly three years after Black Friday — the first cashouts of Full Tilt Poker funds began to hit U.S. players' accounts. (The latest update last month shows 94 percent of petitions have been paid out.) A few months later in June came news that Daniel Tzvetkoff, the Australian payment-processor-turned-informant whose plea bargain in back in 2010 eventually led to the Black Friday indictment and civil complaint, had been sentenced to time served and $13 million in forfeitures.
June also saw another big piece of online poker news, a development that could also be regarded a belated after-effect of Black Friday. The Amaya Gaming Group Inc. reached an agreement to acquire the parent company of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker for a whopping $4.9 billion, a move instantly making the Toronto-based group the world's largest publicly-traded online gaming company. For the rest of the world, the purchase would eventually mean changes to the sites' poker offerings and a new emphasis on casino games. But for the U.S., it opened the door to the possibility that PokerStars could one day return to America, removing the 'bad actor' obstacle in states' online gambling legislation.
Before the year was out, Ultimate Poker would shut down its operations in New Jersey in September, then leave Nevada in November, ending the fledgling site's struggle after just a year-and-a-half.
2015: The Land of the Free (Money Games)
Four years on from Black Friday, U.S. online poker players in the other 47 states still had few real-money options. Lock Poker proved an especially bad choice, going offline without notice in mid-April 2015 and taking players' funds with them. By contrast Bovada (formerly Bodog) continued to thrive, moving up to third position in online traffic according to PokerScout's best estimates in August 2015.
PokerStars continued to lead the global market by a lot, with traffic and festivals like WCOOP and SCOOP returning to pre-Black Friday levels. And after much back-and-forthing the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcementat last granted Amaya a license in late September 2015.
2016: PokerStars Returns To America
A little over three weeks shy of the fifth anniversary of having dealt its last hand of online poker in the U.S., PokerStars was back in the States with the launch of PokerStars NJ on March 21, 2016. The development has inspired some to think back to those days of the NAPT, wondering if perhaps a new, New Jersey-based tournament festival sponsored by PokerStars might be on the horizon.
For those who lived through the 'boom' and pre-Black Friday rise of online poker in the U.S., it's hard to believe how long ago it has been. Five years on, and online poker in the United States is still mostly relegated to modest options restricted to just three states. Serious U.S. players seeking to make a living playing online have long ago realized the need to go abroad to do so. Many of those who've stayed behind have moved over to the live realm, with many brick-and-mortar rooms thriving as a result.
One imagines online poker in the U.S. should be much different five years from now. That said, it seems highly unlikely the difference will be anywhere near as stark as the difference between what online poker in the U.S. was before April 15, 2011, and what it became even before that day had ended.
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