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A deal has been done so the poker sites now have their web sites backs and Americans can now withdraw their money.....

April 20 - If you have money frozen at Poker Stars or Full Tilt Poker there is good news, you can now withdraw your funds effective immediately. If you're dumb enough to have an account with Ultimate Bet or Absolute Poker then you still have to wait because they have yet to accept the deal, which was offered by US authorities.

In fact those sites have yet to stop Americans from playing for real money. US online poker players cannot deposit, withdraw, or transfer funds on those two sites but they can still play. That won't sit well with authorities.

The U.S. government has also agreed to allow PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to resume use of their .com domain names that had been "seized" and shut down last week.

The two responsible online poker companies (you know the ones that didn't cheat players out of more than $10 million) agreed to the "domain name use agreements" and will be allowed to reactivate pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com in order to "facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players' funds held in account with the companies."

Prosecutors said the same agreement is open to Absolute Poker, the third company indicted last week, if it chooses to accept.

The government initially filed "restraining orders" against several bank accounts and the domain names used by the poker companies. However, prosecutors now contend that the companies were never required to freeze player accounts.

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that no player accounts were ever frozen or restrained, and each poker company has been free to reimburse any player's deposited funds, which was probably news to them and everyone else in the industry. We all remember NETELLER, and that debacle did result in account holder funds being frozen for several months.

"In fact, this office expects the companies to return the money that U.S. players entrusted to them, and we will work with the poker companies to facilitate the return of funds to players," Bharara said in a statement.

When the US government plays nice like this it can mean only one thing - Full Tilt and Poker Stars are ready to cough up their share of the $3 billion. The quicker they do that the quicker they'll be able to get back to business outside of the US. As for the other company - well, it would come as no shock if they didn't have the ready cash to settle. Players with accounts there should prepare for a long haul.
Poker Stars and Full Tilt Players Can Now Get Funds Back - 04-20-11