Full Tilt Poker bank account unfrozen

The US Department of Justice (JoD) has released one of the frozen bank accounts seized during the events of Black Friday and the federal indictments that were unsealed against the owners and founders of online gambling operators in violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

The UIGEA was passed into law back in 2006 under George W. Bush administration. It prohibits real money online gambling for US residents and criminalizes operators who offer their services and banks and payment processing firms who handle gambling money.

When the UIGEA was passed many big online gambling operators withdrew from the US market, while others continued to serve in defiance of US federal laws and continued to do so almost undisturbed until last month when US authorities started their crackdown on those in violation of US laws and continued to do so this month.

The three big poker rooms that had their dot.com domains and bank account seized and started negotiations with the DoJ to release their domains and bank account in order to facilitate refunding US players funds.

PokerStars has already had its dot.com and bank accounts released so it was able to return $100 million of US players' funds.

Now the DoJ has released the Irish bank account of Raymond Bitar, Full Till Poker co-founder and CEO of TiltWare; the software and marketing company behind Full Tilt Poker, and it is rumored to contain around a third of the $100 - $150 million still owed to US players by Full Till Poker.

However there is still no confirmation from Full Till Poker that this move will commence the refunding of monies owed and even if it does, it falls short of the total amount owed to US players.