The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that class action settlement company Garden City Group (GCG) will monitor the process for the compensation of Absolute Poker players who were not able to withdraw their funds from the online poker room after it was faced with a civil action for money laundering, illegal gambling provision, and other allegations back in 2011. Here it is important to note that GCG had previously been charged with overseeing the repayment process of affected Full Tilt Poker players. Up to now, the amount of $118 million has been returned to their rightful owners. However,…

Sheldon Adelson is a Republican “mega donor” and hates online gambling. On the surface, there’s nothing necessarily unusual about his donation, made public this month, of $20 million to a GOP super PAC called the Senate Leadership Fund. His recent donation of $25 million to the Trump campaign makes him the biggest donor of either party of the 2016 election cycle, even if it was short of the $100 million he initially pledged. Over the years he has contributed well over nine figures to Republican causes. But eyebrows were raised at the Washington Post this week by the timing of…

In what has been a surprising move (considering how late in the legislative session the action comes and the lack of previous interest in the subject), Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has filed a bill on the Senate agenda that looks to be taking up the action of either banning online gaming and poker or putting some teeth into the law that is used against the industry, the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. Cotton’s bill, which was filed on Friday afternoon, is S. 3376 and it has been filed with the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, meaning…

While online gaming – including online poker – is not currently legal in Russia, it hasn’t stopped most online gaming operators from offering services to country’s 144 million residents. However, it may become more difficult for online gaming companies to operate within Russia due to a new Finance Bill introduced by the country’s Finance Ministry, which if passed would prohibit banks from processing any online gaming transactions. The bill has strong support, including that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is believed to have pushed for the bill to be presented to the country’s legislators. While this bill, if passed,…

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement, or the UIGEA, is a slick bit of con work by US politicians. Attached to a terrorism bill called the SAFE Port Act in 2006, the UIGEA was a last minute addition to a must-pass security measure. The manner in which the UIGEA was passed was borderline criminal. Political stooges like Senator Bill Frist on Tennessee and Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia pushed for passage of the UIGEA, not because it was the will of the people… but the will of their political donors. The UIGEA prohibits gambling businesses from “knowingly accepting payments in connection…