The latest Full Tilt Poker news update regarding PokerStars buying FullTilt is IGaming post recently reported that following a US court hearing between Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and the DOJ.
The parties involved are set to make an announcement some time during the last week of May 2012, which should contain a schedule for repayment of all Fulltilt Poker USA players and those from the rest of the world.
Both Isai Scheinberg the owner of PokerStars and Paul Tate Director of Payments may be expected to vacate their positions at PokerStars as part of the deal.
The deal reached by PokerStars buying FullTilt Poker will be fully approved by the USA DOJ who are then expected to announce that both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will be allowed to apply for licenses in the USA once poker is legal in America.
There are also rumors circulating that Wynn may have a part to play in the Full Tilt Poker deal.
PokerStars must be pleased with the outcome of their dealings with the DOJ and even more so that no prejudice will be held against them when applying for a license in the USA sometime in the future.
Mitt Romney, Republican Presidential frontrunner does not support legalized online poker in the United States, the reasons given for his stance on online poker legislation in the USA is “because of the social costs and people’s addictive gambling habits.”
Mitt Romney, is a Mormon, in keeping with his religious line is expected to follow the Church of Latter Day Saints which bans gambling, alcohol and even coffee leaving us poker players with little chance of ever seeing online poker legalized in the USA with him in charge of the White House.
Newt Gingrich, while not making his stance on the legislation of online poker known as of yet has strong ties to Casino boss and online gaming opponent Sheldon Adelson who has contributed over $10 million to date to Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s campaign.
Rick Santorum is another not in favor with online poker, he was quoted as saying: “I’m someone who takes the opinion that gaming is not something that is beneficial, particularly having that access on the internet. Just like we’ve seen from a lot of other things that are ‘vices,’ they tend to grow exponentially as a result of that. It’s one thing to come to Las Vegas and do gaming and participate in the shows and entertainment and that kind of thing. It’s another thing to be able to sit in your home and have access to that. I just think it would be dangerous for our country.”
Santorum went on to say: “There are certain things that do cost people a lot of money, cost them their lives, [and] cost them their fortunes that we shouldn’t have available. That’s why we regulate gaming. You have a big commission [in Nevada] that regulates gambling, for a reason. We don’t have it everywhere. I for one don’t think it’s a good thing. A lot of people don’t responsibly gamble and lose a lot and end up in not such great economic straits as a result of that.”
Ron Paul supports online poker legislation and has been a co-sponsor of several pro-online poker bills, including Congressman Joe Barton’s HR 2366, which sets up a framework to legalize and regulate internet poker in the United States. Paul is one of 27 co-sponsors of the bipartisan bill, which was introduced last June but has not found its way out of committee.
Ron Paul advocates freedom and the right for people to spend their hard earned money as they please.
No major changes thus far in regard to the USA poker ban with all the big rooms still closed to the US market but some rather interesting developments have evolved during the course of this week.
UB/AP have now reached an agreement with the US government in which the US Attorney’s Office has agreed 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 US. However many in the know are somewhat skeptical that UB/AP have enough funds to make the payments to all their US based players.
US Attorney Preet Bharara confirmed that an agreement had been struck between the US government and Absolute Poker “Absolute Poker of Costa Rica agreed to return funds owed to U.S. customers and prohibit deposits of American players.”
Absolute Poker has not requested the return of their seized domain names in www.absolutepoker.com, www.ultimatebet.com or www.ub.com. Both Pokerstars and FullTilt Poker were returned their .com domain names as part of the deal with the US DOJ.
After nearly a month since the US poker ban known as “Black Friday”, FullTilt Poker and UB/Absolute Poker are in the same position since the USA poker room closures in that neither of them offer their gaming services to the US market and both sites have failed to repay their US players their outstanding balances to date.
PokerStars on the other hand seem to be rapidly gaining trust amongst non-US players as they have overcome the payment hurdle, the main reason they could do so is because the player funds are held separately from the main PokerStars account which is enforced by their licensing agreement with the Isle of Man as such PokerStars have already begun paying back the owed money to their former US players.