In a rare bit of good news since Black Friday, PokerStars has started giving money back to their American customers. When the domain was seized by the U.S. Department of Justice, Americans found themselves without the ability to play on the site or get their money back, but last week the online poker room reached an agreement with the DOJ to allow the refunding of money to the players.

Today PokerStars announced that they have made arrangements with a bank to facilitate the return of that money. Any American customer with a PokerStars account is advised to request a refund as soon as possible. The Justice Department will be closely monitoring all of the transactions.

This is good news for American customers of PokerStars. Of course, if you read the AP story, you also get a nice piece of misinformation and/or propaganda along with that good news. The Associated Press reports that the company is paying the refunds “as its executives face allegations of bank fraud and money laundering to conceal illegal Internet gambling.”

Catch that? It was subtle, right? Just like most of the biased news that comes from the AP, if you don’t already know a lot about the issue at hand, you didn’t even notice that they skewed the report. If you didn’t catch it, here’s the answer: Everything in that quote was factual except the word “illegal.”

The AP seems to be implying that online poker is illegal in the United States. Hey AP, assuming you still employ fact-checkers (which seems more and more unlikely), would you please have them tell me which law bans online poker? You see, something is only illegal if there is a statute banning it. That’s kind of how America works.

So is there a federal law banning online poker? No, there is not. Is there a more general federal law banning all online gambling? No, there is not. Are there any federal laws outlawing anything relating to online gambling? Yes, there are, and this is where people, thanks to the incorrect reporting of the media, get confused.

UIGEA makes it illegal for banks to process transactions for online gambling that are made illegal by other laws. That would include federal, state, city or county laws. The other federal law, which is the only other one the DOJ can point to in this case, is the Wire Act. That law only bans electronic sports betting, as confirmed by the court system.

So where did the AP get the idea that PokerStars was engaging in “illegal Internet gambling?” Probably from the DOJ indictment, which charged them with running an illegal gambling business along with fraud and money laundering. I assume the Justice Department plans to make the case that PokerStars violated either UIGEA or the Wire Act with their online poker business. They would be wrong. In any case, if that’s where the AP got that idea, that’s where you use that “alleged” word. It’s really pretty important, AP! Try calling it “alleged illegal internet gambling.” If you do that, your article is actually factual and people will actually have a better understanding of the issues! If that’s your goal (of which I’m not certain), then surely you will appreciate my advice. In that case, you’re welcome.

In a rare bit of good news regarding the Black Friday indictments and online poker domain seizures, a deal has been reached that will allow the websites to return at a limited capacity. That will make it easier for U.S. citizens to get their money back and will allow citizens of other countries to continue playing.

On Friday, along with unsealing the indictments of 11 individuals and seizing various bank accounts, the U.S. Department of Justice shut down and seized the domain names of PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, AbsolutePoker.com, UltimateBet.com and UB.com. Now the DOJ has reached a domain-name use agreement that will allow two of those domains, Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, to get back up and running.

The agreement allows the websites to resume offering services to people who are not citizens of the United States. For any members who are American citizens, the companies are allowed to use the website to facilitate the professing of refunds. Basically, the government wants the companies to grant refunds to all American members, giving them whatever money is left in their account. Americans are not allowed to either deposit money or play with existing money at the poker websites. To ensure that all of this is done in accordance with the agreements reached between the Justice Department and the two companies, the government will appoint an “independent monitor” to oversee the process.

This is a small piece of good news for online poker players. Non-Americans can go back to playing on the sites if they choose. American citizens will have an easier time getting their money back, instead of it being inaccessible and possibly lost forever.

Today people got a shock when trying to play at their favorite poker sites. Instead of getting the homepage for the poker room, players were greeted with an FBI warning, telling them that the domain had been seized pursuant to an arrest warrant obtained by the United States Attorney’s Office.

The warning from the FBI laughingly points out that being involved in an “illegal gambling business” is a federal crime. That’s true, but being involved in any type of illegal business is a crime. Online poker, however, is not a crime in and of itself.

Initially, some thought that the so-called seizures were a hoax by some hacker, but soon thereafter, the Department of Justice issued a press release concerning a recently unsealed indictment. The press release states that eleven people have been indicted, including the founders of the three largest online poker sites doing business in the U.S., Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker.

In addition to the indictments, the United States filed a “civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint against the poker companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors.” In other words, the government wants to seize the assets of the poker companies and anyone who processed payments for them. The Justice Department also issued restraining orders against more than 75 bank accounts that were used by the poker rooms and the payment processors. They also confiscated five domain names.

There are nine charges that the defendants are facing, including conspiracy to violate UIGEA, operation of an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.

In short, the government is saying that the poker website operators and payment processors conspired to trick banks into processing payments for online gambling. They allegedly tricked the banks by laundering the money through fake Internet businesses. In other cases, the allegedly bribed the banks in order to gain their cooperation.

All of this comes shortly after Australian entrepreneur/slimeball Daniel Tzvetkoff was released from jail on bail after a secret meeting with prosecutors. Tzvetkoff founded Intabill, an online payment processor that worked closely with the very poker websites currently under indictment. After he supposedly ripped them off, the companies sued him. Unable to recoup their money, they alerted the FBI to his presence in the United States, which resulted in him being arrested and charged with various money laundering and fraud crimes.

As a man with inside knowledge into the payment processes of these poker sites, he had a lot of leverage. With him now released on bail, having previously been denied bail due to being a flight risk, and these eleven people being indicted, it seems that Tzvetkoff cooperated and turned over these “bigger fish” to the authorities.

In recent months, the United States federal government has seized almost $8 million from financial institutions, saying that the money was the result of illegal online poker in the state of Washington. It is the latest signal that Washington is serious about cracking down on illegal gambling, and residents of the Evergreen State had better take heed.

Like it or not, online gambling (including online poker) is illegal in the state of Washington. The state legislature passed a law banning the activity back in 2006, but that law was challenged in the courts. While it was being challenged, residents continued playing and poker rooms, such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, continued to accept wagers from those residents. However, in September of 2010, the state Supreme Court upheld the law, stating that it was constitutional. When that happened, it settled the argument: Online gambling (including poker) is illegal in the state of Washington. As a result, PokerStars immediately began blocking bets from Washington residents.

According to federal prosecutors in the state, though, online gambling has persisted since then. In recent months, they have seized funds in a variety of banks – including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust and more – that were transferred from online poker rooms. According to Forbes, the largest forfeiture case involves $5.1 million seized from a man who had received a check of poker winnings from Arrow Checks.

According to the federal prosecutors, they have the authority to seize the funds because online gambling is illegal in Washington and therefore, by gambling at overseas websites, the Washington residents violated the federal Interstate Wire Act. That seems like a rather broad reading of the Wire Act, but even if they’re wrong, it’s just a technicality.

As I had said many times, there is no federal law banning online gambling (except sports betting). Therefore, gambling online is legal in the U.S. as long as it is not done in a state that bans the activity. Washington does have an online gambling ban. Therefore, even if the feds don’t have the legal authority to seize the funds and prosecute the offenders, the state government does. In either case, a law is being broken, which makes the money ill-gotten gains.

So I will say this now to be perfectly clear: I support legalizing online gambling everywhere, so people have the freedom to make their own choices about their money. However, I do not advocate breaking the law. If you live in a U.S. state that does not have a law banning online gambling, feel free to play. If you live in a state where it is illegal, such as Washington, do not gamble online.

The advertising department of PokerStars has had a rough time lately. First Germany banned a television commercial for being too violent and misrepresenting the experience of visiting a brick and mortar casino within the country. Now New Zealand’s highest court has ruled that their advertisements in South Pacific nation are illegal.

In New Zealand, gambling online for real money is only legal if done with the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB), the partially state-run monopoly. New Zealand citizens are not allowed to gamble with any other websites, including overseas operators. Those offshore gambling operators are also not allowed to advertise their services in New Zealand.

PokerStars has both a real-money gambling site – PokerStars.com – and an online poker site where users play for free – PokerStars.net. After recent controversy, though, New Zealand’s high court ruled that the advertisements for the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) violated the country’s gambling laws because it promotes overseas gambling.

A lower court had ruled that the television ads for the APPT were legal because players could enter the tournament by playing their win in on the free PokerStars.net website. However, the high court ruled that because some players directly buy their way into the APPT and because the money they pay goes toward a prize pool, advertising for the Asia Pacific Poker Tour constitutes advertising for overseas online gambling. As such, the ads are in violation of Section 4 of the New Zealand Gambling Act of 2003.

Judge Ronald Young explained the ruling by stating that “although some contestants qualify to play by skill rather than the payment of an entry fee, those who do pay are gambling. Thus what is advertised is still gambling even if not all contestants are gambling.”

Due to the ruling, PokerStars will no longer be able to advertise for the Asia Pacific Poker Tour in New Zealand.

More and more governments around the world are finding that it is harder to stop citizens from doing things than they thought. That is particularly true of online gambling. Considered a vice by many governments but considered a harmless pastime by most people with common sense, government bans are usually largely ignored. Now it has been reported that Poland is seeing more online gambling now that it is illegal than they did while it was legal.

In October of 2009, Poland’s government passed a law that bans online gambling websites from operating in the country or even advertising. In 2009, Polish citizens had spent zl 3.2 billion on online gambling, which is 50% more than on land-based casinos and betting shops. So the number had nowhere to go but down, right? Wrong. In 2010, Poles are on pace to gamble approximately zl 4 billion over the internet. That’s a lot of zlatas and is a 20% increase from 2009, when it was legal.

So Poland bans online gambling and as result sees a 20% increase in its activity. Not only are Polish citizens ignoring the gambling ban, but some gambling operators are as well. For example, PokerStars is still offering their Polish website, PokerStars.pl, and continues to advertise on local cable stations, directly defying the 2009 law.

In response to people ignoring the ban, the Polish government has so far done nothing. They considered keeping a list of online casinos that violate the ban and then blocking them, but the internet censorship was met with sharp criticism and the plan was dropped. According to sources, a new plan may be to amend the current law to allow the prosecution of the gamblers who play on the illegal internet gambling websites. Another proposed amendment would be to claim personal jurisdiction over any overseas gambling websites, such as PokerStars, who illegally advertise in Poland. Doing so would allow Poland to prosecute the offenders wherever their companies are based.

On the other hand, they could also realize that clearly the people want to be able to play poker and their favorite casino games online. Since Poland is a democracy, they should listen to what the people want and repeal the online gambling ban.

In yet another sign that poker is becoming more mainstream, PokerStars has signed a deal with FOX Sports that will have the poker room promoted on FOX’s website. PokerStars is the largest online poker website in the world and FOX Sports is one of the largest and most popular sports companies in America, perhaps trumped only by ESPN.

The partnership is an attempt to bring more publicity to PokerStars’ free poker website, PokerStars.net. The free poker website will be hosted on FOXSports.com and allow people to play poker for free on FOX as well as get updates on any poker news. In return for promoting the poker site, FOX Sports gets in on the poker market, which to this point has been dominated by ESPN, who, among other things, televises the World Series of Poker tournament. The idea is to make FOX Sports the number-one source of poker information on the internet, aside from Gambling Review, of course.

It is a deal that is mutually beneficial and both sides seem very excited. FOX’s Jim Bernard, the Vice President of Gaming, said that “poker enthusiasts are some of the most fanatical and engaged sports fans on the web today. We look forward to delivering the poker experience to our 26 million viewers.” Way to brag about your viewers, Jim. Okay, so Gambling Review doesn’t quite have 26 million yet, but we’re getting there. Bernard also said some of the customary “PokerStars is awesome” type of statements, as expected.

In return, Joe Versaci, North America Regional Marketing Director for PokerStars, told everyone how awesome FOX Sports is, saying that they host the “best live and editorial content on thousands of sporting and gaming events every week. This tie-in will see FOXSports.com and PokerStars.net combine the best live and editorial content with the web’s best online poker games.”

PokerStars, as you probably know, also has an online poker room where you play for real money (PokerStars.com). However, only the free version can be offered in the United States without having to worry about how the government will react. Plus, FOX Sports would never get involved in a controversial issue like paid online poker. On the other hand, if UIGEA is overturned and online poker made clearly legal, all bets are off.

If you’re in your late twenties to early thirties, you may only know Estonia from the movie Encino Man. In that case, you probably think the country was made up, but I assure you it is real. The Republic of Estonia is located in the Baltic region of northern Europe. There aren’t a whole lot of things that Estonia is known for worldwide, but the people there seem to like it. One of the reasons they like it is because of the vast freedoms the country offers. One of those is the freedom to gamble online, something even the United States doesn’t allow. Now the nation is expanding their online gambling market.

Early this year, Estonia liberalized their online gambling market, rejecting a monopoly and creating a system that would license and regulate the industry. As is often the case with governments, the process has been slow, but last week, Estonia finally issued their fourth online gambling license. The new license was granted to PokerStars, given them the ability to create an online poker site for the Estonian market.

Another licensed online gambling operator is a good thing for Estonian citizens. Currently, any gambling websites that do not have a license to do business in Estonia are being blocked by the government. PokerStars was once on the government’s blacklist, but with the new license they are now welcome business partners of the government.

To obtain a license to operate an online casino in Estonia, the operator must set up servers within Estonia, meet strict technical requirements, be inspected by the government for safety and pay licensing and operation fees.

On Tuesday, France opened up its online gambling market to foreign companies. Previously they banned online casinos from overseas and only allowed domestic casinos to get business from French customers. This, however, was in violation of European Union rules, which set up free trade agreements between EU member nations. After defying the rules, this week France gave in.

Operating an online casino in the French market isn’t easy, though. Their new online gambling laws are very strict and have rules for licensing that many call excessive and some even call “Draconian.” So far, approximately 35 online casino operators have applied for the licensed in France, with the French issuing 17 licenses to the 11 operators. The other 24 online casinos are still waiting for word from the French.

The new French online gambling legislation established a regulatory authority called the ARJEL, which is an acronym that makes sense in France. ARJEL can only give out 30 licenses and a separate license needs to be given for each type of gambling operation, which is why some online casino have more than one. With 17 of the 30 licenses already given out, there are only 13 still up for grabs.

There are a few big-name online gambling companies still waiting for licenses, such as Microgaming, PartyGaming and PokerStars. Other online gambling companies have pulled out of the French market entirely, meaning they will no longer accept bets from French customers. Some big names in that group include Betfair, Spin Palace and Ladbrokes. Those companies say that the rules and restrictions by the French government make it an unsuitable market for turning a profit.

Once the French decided to open the online gambling market, they hurried to get licenses handed out in time for the World Cup, which is the most popular sporting event in the world. Billions of dollars will be bet on the Cup over the next month, so the French want in on the money.

If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s that there is a world record for everything. And they’re all in Guinness’s book. Guinness judges have determined the fastest time to pluck a turkey, the most books typed backwards (67 books, by the way), the youngest person to wear a full set of dentures, and the largest gathering of Santa Claus’. I have also proposed some world records that have yet to be confirmed by the nice folks at Guinness, such as Robert Altman’s record for the most consecutive minutes of pointless boredom in film, Barack Obama’s record for most times talking about himself in public, Jack Johnson’s record for the most songs that sound exactly the same, and Paris Hilton’s record for spreading STD’s to the most people.

Now there is another record. Popular online casino PokerStars has set a new record for hosting the most players at an internet poker room at the same time. PokerStars’ new record of 307,016 players playing online poker simultaneously on 42,814 tables shatters the record previously held by…PokerStars. Okay, so breaking a record is never as cool when it’s your own record, but it’s still a great achievement. The record-breaking moment occurred on September 6, 2009 and has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, which means it must truly be a record.

I’m not sure how Guinness decides if something is a record, but I imagine it involves them saying, “Well, gosh, that’s a pretty big number. That’s gotta be a record. Have you ever heard of anyone with more than that? No, me neither. Let’s just put that down as a record and we’ll see if anyone challenges it.” I could be wrong. Maybe their judges do a lot of research.  In any case, I haven’t seen that many people gathered in one room since the homeowner’s association meeting after I proposed making everyone trade in their grass for AstroTurf. I still think it’s a good idea, just for the record.