Full Tilt Poker issued a statement yesterday saying, "Unfortunately, as a result of this action, Full Tilt Poker has decided that it must suspend real money play in the United States until this case is resolved. However, Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide peer-to-peer online poker services outside of the United States.”

Full Tilt Poker issued a statement yesterday saying, "Unfortunately, as a result of this action, Full Tilt Poker has decided that it must suspend real money play in the United States until this case is resolved. However, Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide peer-to-peer online poker services outside of the United States.”
The statement contained a link to the Full Tilt Poker website, now sporting a notice from the F.B.I., complete with official seals, saying, "This domain name has been seized by the F.B.I. pursuant to an Arrest Warrant in rem obtained by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York."
In a statement issued Saturday, representatives from Global Betting and Gaming Consultants (GBGC) sounded resigned to the repercussions from today's action. "The arrests in the USA are a game changer—no question," wrote GBGC's Warwick Bartlett and Lorien Pilling. "We are moving toward a global high tax, lower profit, and high regulatory regime. Some countries will be slow to join but as markets close down competition in countries such as Italy, France, Germany operators will target those that remain giving rise to complaints from land based operators who will see market share fall. As government tax revenues decline those countries will act and join the high tax high regulation club.
"The so called gray market where a lack of law prevents the closure of Internet gambling companies will eventually disappear," they continued. "The market will be black or white. It was not so long ago that e-gaming executives were sitting on CEO panels at conferences saying, 'We want to come on shore,'  and, 'Yes, please tax us and let us apply for licenses.' They could not have imagined in their wildest dreams (nightmares?) it would have been like this.
"The irony," they added, "is that the U.S. federal government has been planning to introduce poker legislation and various states such as Nevada, California, New Jersey and Florida have been planning to jump the gun with intrastate legislation." Concerned players, they said, were tweeting furiously, scared their funds would be frozen, a legitimate worry considering the feds previous actions doing just that.
But members of the domain community are telling domain owners not to panic, because, as the DomainNameWise.com headline put it, "Poker Domain Seizures Show Futility of Nabbing Domain Names."
"You can take away a domain name, but you can’t stop people from visiting a web site," the article stated. "Yesterday’s seizure of five poker company domain names is another case in point. Still want to get your fix of Poker Stars? Just go to PokerStars.eu."
Unclear is what, if anything, this coordinated take down of Big Internet Poker and its alleged 'middle man' payment processors means for the porn industry, which is increasingly global in every way, and more, that online gaming is global. One big difference, of course, is that there is no UIGEA for online porn, which is precisely how the adult industry would like to keep it. At the moment, there also is no indication that Tzvetkoff's experience in the processing end of the adult online industry will come into play here, but with as many twists and turns as this story has already had that's a bet that few may be willing to make.

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