A former PokerStars employee will avoid prison but will have to forfeit $119,000 after pleading guilty last month to taking part in the provision of online gambling operations to US citizens in the years after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act was enforced.
Paul Tate, a UK citizen residing on the Isle of Man, had previously served as Director of Payments at PokerStars. The former executive was among eleven individuals to be indicted on April 15, 2011, or the Black Friday of online poker as the day has been dubbed, in relation to the illegal provision of real-money online poker options by poker brands PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker.
Each of the 11 persons indicted faced four charges, with those including participation in illegal online poker operation, money laundering, bank fraud, etc.
The more than five-year case found out that the above-mentioned poker operators had deceived banks into processing large amounts of money, with those coming from illicit online gaming services. This had allegedly been done through non-trading shell companies that had appeared to be absolutely legitimate.
With Tate pleading guilty last month, he could have spent five years in prison. However, US District Judge for the Southern District of New York Lewis Kaplan ruled on Monday that the defendant must only pay a forfeit of $119,000. Judge Kaplan explained that he wanted to credit Tate for appearing before court to face justice rather than deciding to stay on the Isle of Man where he would have escaped extradition.
As many as nine of the indicted individuals have pleaded guilty. PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg still has charges pending against him. He, too, returned to the US voluntarily but it is yet to be seen whether this would do him good. In 2014, Scheinberg sold the Rational Group, the company that owns PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, to Canadian gambling operator Amaya Inc. in an unprecedented $4.9-billion deal.
Here it is also important to remind that Full Tilt Poker came under the Rational Group’s control in 2012 as part of a $731-million settlement. Under said settlement, Full Tilt Poker was to forfeit its assets and PokerStars had to forfeit the amount of $547 million. The latter poker company also had to reimburse $184 million Full Tilt Poker owed to a number of players.
