2011 April 19 Poker News, Events and Happenings

Online poker rooms that had their domain names seized by the US continued to run tournaments over the weekend. On last Friday the US Department of Justice shut down PokerStars, UB.com, Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker, but still held online tournaments. While US poker players could not play at many of the rooms, there were still enough players that the poker rooms would not have to pay overlays. An overlay is when a poker room guarantees a certain amount in a tourney prize pool but does not generate enough from the players to cover it, and thus has to pay it themselves.

Online poker room Poker Stars may soon get $300k from politicians from Nevada. A certain number of Nevada State Assembly members were given money by the online poker room. They were given the money to help promote the idea of legalizing online poker. Now that the Federal government has seized four major online poker rooms domain names, the Assembly members have pledged to return the money to the online poker site. The news came from a tweet from John Ralston that those Democrats in the Assembly came together to agree to return the $300,000 in campaign contributions.

One of the eleven people arrested by the US Justice Department in connection with the seizure of poker domain names has plead not guilty. Bradley Franzen was charged with operating an illegal gambling business, bank fraud, and money laundering. His company is one of four that were charged with elping online poker rooms skirt US law. The poker sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have had their domain names seized by the US government. Franzen was released when his bail of $200,000 was paid after a lean was taken on his parents house.