DoJ releases unknown amount from PokerStars account
Operator receives unknown sum from Luxembourg account frozen on Black Friday.
The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has released an unspecified amount of money from a frozen PokerStars account.
The money had been held in the Hapoalim Bank in Luxembourg, one of the financial institutions named in the US$3bn civil complaint accompanying the Black Friday indictments and tied to Pokerstars’ payments company Sphene International Limited.
In total there were three named accounts tied to Sphene, one with Hapoalim Bank and two with Credit Agricole (Suisse). As far as eGaming Review is aware the latter two have not been affected by the latest DoJ decision.
The amount of money freed up has not been specified, but a release from the Department dated 2 September states that “[T]he Government and PokerStars have reached an agreement pursuant to which PokerStars consents to the restraint of US$5.5m in the Account…and the Government agrees that it does not object to PokerStars’ use of the remaining funds in that account.”
That $5.5m figure is “ according to the release “ “derived from online poker play for real money in the United States,” a fact which the government accepts has been represented by the operator.
In May of this year it was believed that one of Full Tilt Poker’s frozen accounts had been freed up by the United States government, although it later transpired that the account in question had been voluntarily frozen by the Bank of Ireland.
Pokerstars had been able to pay out more than US$100m to players by mid-May, and has continued to pay out player funds since amounting to around $125m, however US players with money on Full Tilt have so far been unable to recover their balances. Lawyers tied to Full Tilt maintain that the ongoing negotiations with potential investments would require the repayment of players.
The government’s possession of the $5.5m which PokerStars must leave untouched in the Hapoalim Bank account will continue until the conclusion of the United States v Pokerstars et al legislation. The government has said nothing more concerning the other accounts named in the civil suit.
A Pokerstars spokesman was unable to comment.