Mark Scheinberg, the chairman of the largest online poker site in the world, PokerStars has agreed to payout $50 million to settle a dispute regarding forfeiture demands made by the US government. This is all connected, of course, to the money laundering charges that were made against the online poker giant, which were settled last year, allowing them to clear their name, at least to some extent. Mr Scheinberg has agreed after a long dispute as to whether the money was actually subject to forfeiture, however this now matters little and it's been paid. PokerStars did of course issue a statement on the matter which stated that the “agreement is not in response to any action that had been brought against Mark and contains no admission of wrongdoing, culpability or guilt on his behalf.” The amount of $50 million comes after the huge amount already paid by the company, a total of $731 million which was agreed to be handed over last July 2012. A total of $547 million of that money is ear marked to pay US customers of Full Tilt Poker, which as you probably know, had it's own somewhat larger issues to deal with before Stars bought them out.
Other PokerStars News
PokerStars parent company Rational Group has appealed of the New Jersey Superior Court ruling that was made against the sale of the Atlantic Club Casino in the state. There were many problems with the whole deal, and now that it is all over the problems continue. The deal was for $15 million in total, and Stars paid an upfront amount of $11 million, however Rational Group failed to secure the necessary approval that was required to own a casino in the state before the deadline was up, and as a result the the Atlantic Club were told that they could keep the initial payment of $11 million. The appeal will be lodged stating that Judge Raymond Batten made several mistakes with his interpretation of the deal and that his decision was based on documents that were not formally entered as evidence.
