FBI Shuts Down Online Poker Sites

The Hill reports:

Executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker have been charged with bank fraud and money laundering.

The FBI shut down three of the largest poker websites Friday in what appears to be the largest crackdown on illegal online gambling to date.

Eleven executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker have been charged with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offenses. Prosecutors are seeking to immediately shut down the sites and recover $3 billion from the firms.

"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," said U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara in a statement.

"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."The popularity of poker has skyrocketed in recent years thanks in part to mainstream interest in the World Series of Poker and other televised tournaments. Many states have legalized live poker rooms in some form, but online gambling was outlawed in 2006.