Seized poker funds subject of court request

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A payment processor that handles the accounts of online poker players wants a judge to order the return of about $14 million that the company says was illegally seized by the federal government.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
Account Services Corp. of San Diego made the request in a filing with a federal judge there Friday.<o:p></o:p>
An advocacy group for online poker, The Poker Players Alliance, said the money is part of the more than $30 million recently frozen by the federal government from payment processors. The poker group told The Associated Press Monday it planned to file a motion with the court to participate in the case on the side of Account Services.<o:p></o:p>
“Any action contesting the government’s seizure of players’ funds will help protect the rights of U.S. Internet poker players, and we will explore every legal avenue to ensure that our members’ voices are heard and their rights are protected,” said John Pappas, the poker group’s executive director.<o:p></o:p>
In its filing, Account Services said that federal prosecutors seized $13.3 million from an account at a Wells Fargo Bank in Escondido, Calif., and $1 million from two accounts at a Union Bank in San Diego. Although the Wells Fargo funds were seized with a warrant, Account Services said, prosecutors contacted Union Bank without obtaining a warrant.<o:p></o:p>
Included in the filing is a June 12 e-mail from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to Union Bank, in which prosecutors say that “exigent circumstances” require that money be frozen immediately while they obtain a seizure warrant. About two weeks later, a seizure warrant was issued for Union Bank by U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman in New York City, according to a June 24 order included in the filing.<o:p></o:p>
Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for the Southern District prosecutors, said the office had no comment. The Justice Department has long maintained that Internet gambling is illegal; the poker group and Account Services challenges that view.<o:p></o:p>
Account Services said the seizure was unreasonable because, it argued, neither the company, the players nor the banks had violated the law. It said it will likely have to close down if the money isn’t returned, and that it’s received legal threats from check-cashing businesses who have had to deal with bounced checks from poker players.<o:p></o:p>
A lawyer for Account Services referred calls to Jeff Ifrah, a lawyer who represents the Interactive Gaming Council, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based trade association for online casinos. Ifrah said that Account Services’ entire business was processing payments for the now-seized bank accounts.<o:p></o:p>
He said that the funds were for players on sites such as Pokerstars.com and Fulltiltpoker.com.<o:p></o:p>
“Poker players have been damaged significantly,” said Ifrah. “Some of the players face civil liability for bounced checks, some have had bank accounts closed.”<o:p></o:p>
A 2006 law prohibits financial institutions from accepting payments from credit cards, checks or electronic fund transfers to settle online wagers. The Justice Department viewed Internet gambling as illegal even before that.<o:p></o:p>
Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, has introduced legislation that would regulate rather than ban Internet gambling.<o:p></o:p>
At least half the $16 billion Internet gambling industry, which is largely hosted on overseas sites, is estimated to be fueled by U.S. bettors.<o:p></o:p>
 

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This could get interesting - seems to me the courts are going to have to rule on whether the wire act covers poker. Not something they have wanted to do in the past, and I believe one federal court already ruled it does not include online casinos.

WHat I dont get is this though. Why do these processors keep so much money in one account. Bank accounts are free. There are 100s if not 1000s of banks and credit unions. If you are going to run a business processing 10s of millions of dollars in online gambling cash, why not open 50 or 100 bank accounts in a variety of business names? And if they do have 100 bank accounts with $14M in each, then this is a rounding error.

-Sean
 

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Can't they just let us freaking gamble if we want to? man this country is messed up, you can own 50 semi automatic guns, but can't bet on football, wow
 

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Bank accounts are free

LOL

maybe for personal accounts.

simple business accounts, depending on the activity, can cost $100's of dollars per month.

also, when the feds take funds they take any/all accounts at the bank.

the processor would need a lot of banks.
 

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So you are telling me someone willing to process gaming transactions isnt willing to use personal accounts?
 

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He is telling you that a bank is not going to let you use a personal account to do 10,000 poker transactions a month.

You have to use a bizz account
 

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So you are telling me someone willing to process gaming transactions isnt willing to use personal accounts?

how long do you think it would take any bank that has an IQ of 70 to figure out that you are not acting as a normal individual?

I would imagine that its more complicated to conceal activities of 100s of accounts than the activities of one account

scenario a:

bank , 'what are you doing with all that?', 'oh, we process payments for internet companies'

scenario b: bank ' what are you doing? you said you were a person? ' , 'oh eh....yeah , I just have 10000 incoming ETFs and 10000 outgoings.......'/ bank "can we see evidence of that?" , "uh eh........"



also the accounts are not just used to pay people but also to act as receiving ends to ACH deposits, in other words, funds are constantly in flux in and out, it would be a total logistical nightmare to handle say 100 accounts and make sure that they are all funded and to keep the appropiate balance at all times to ensure that no transaction is going to end in a NSF situation (its complicated enough to handle the issue of paper checks that have not cleared or that players have not deposited yet)

you could spread the $ across accounts (and well in this scenario its obvious that they have more than 1 but nowhere near to 100 ) still the flow of money in /out is certainly big and if you have 10 million dollars in checks not cashed yet, you simply have to keep that in the account
 

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It would seem to me for millions of dollars you could pay someone or write a computer program to keep track of hundreds of accounts.
 

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banks also have a thing called: "know your customer" which means for every account they need a copies of several forms of ID, an SSN or TIN.

of course one person can have several accounts, but the bank must do due diligence, for several reasons both legal and business.

put it this way, if you got money the bank knows it and will do its best to wet its beak.
 

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