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I’m not totally sure what to make of this other than it’s not good news. The Times Online (a respected paper in the UK) is reporting that many of the top banks have been issued subpoenas to turn over records relating to online gaming companies.
According to the article, these subpoenas were drafted almost immediately after Bush signed the UIGEA and have been a part of an investigation by the DOJ that has up until now been a secret.
The part that seems unclear is whether or not the investigation is targeting banks that have advised online gaming sites or whether or not it’s a mad dash to gather information on those running online gaming sites. Either way, it’s not good news for either the banks or the online gaming business.
The US Department of Justice has ordered the world’s biggest investment banks, accountants and law firms to hand over all e-mails, telephone records and papers connected with internet gaming firms as part of an investigation into illegal online gambling in America.
HSBC, Dresdner Kleinwort, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are known to be among the banks that have been issued with subpoenas — official requests for information — as part of a worldwide hunt to build a case against those who benefited from illegal online gambling.
Chilling? It gets worse.
One source said: “To say the situation is sensitive is the understatement of the decade. The problem is, even if you know you have done nothing wrong, you have no powers of resistance.”
He added: “You can quickly go from being a bystander to a target, so even if you are bomb- proof, you have to assume you are subject to hostility.”
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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Kill the middleman and you kill both sides of the chain? I think that’s what just happened. So what happens without the middleman, now? Either both sides talk directly or they both go away eventually. I think the later will happen.