{"id":10120,"date":"2020-03-29T14:54:51","date_gmt":"2020-03-29T14:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onlinepokeramerica.com\/news\/?p=10120"},"modified":"2020-03-29T14:56:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-29T14:56:07","slug":"pokerstars-isai-scheinberg-pleads-guilty-as-charges-get-dropped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onlinepokeramerica.com\/news\/pokerstars-isai-scheinberg-pleads-guilty-as-charges-get-dropped\/","title":{"rendered":"PokerStars’ Isai Scheinberg Pleads Guilty as Charges Get Dropped"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg<\/strong> has pleaded guilty to running a multi-million-dollar online gambling business. The admission of guilt comes under certain conditions and is an opportunity for Mr. Scheinberg to clear his name. His incredible rise and the business he has built around PokerStars are, as Forbes put it<\/a>, incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Scheinberg agreed to plead guilty as all other\ncharges against him have been dropped and New York court Judge Lewis Kaplan <\/strong>is\nnow debating on the sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Geoffrey Berman<\/strong>, who serves\nas US Attorney for the Southern District of New York<\/strong>, has reminded that\nMr. Scheinberg was arrested back in 2019 at the request of the United States in\nSwitzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Scheinberg first appealed the decision to be\nextradited from the country, but then withdrew it, deciding to settle matters\nin an American court instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The US Attorney reminded that Mr. Scheinberg was among\nthe 11 individuals charged for operating what Mr. Berman described as\nfraudulent payment processing services to three distinct websites, PokerStars<\/strong>,\nFull Tilt Poker<\/strong> and Absolute Poker<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Responding to media inquiries, Mr. Scheinberg himself\nsaid that he was happy with the outcome and the fact that all charges\nrelated to violating the 1971 Gambling Act had been dropped<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He further added that all PokerStars players had been\npaid and that any party that might still had been owed money, had been paid as\nwell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While law is not subject to interpretation, the\npassage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 has\nbeen a source of disturbance across the United States, even in the freshly\nlegalized climate for sports betting, which has also given online poker a\nchance to establish itself in a re-regulated market, and especially in states\nsuch as Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Many states are even considering legalizing the\nactivity. However, the fact remains that in the Department of Justice\u2019s eyes, in\nMr. Scheinberg\u2019s case, the law was broken. A number of prominent pioneers of\nonline poker in the United States have also been charged previously, including Full\nTilt CEO Raymond Bitar<\/strong> and PokerStars\u2019 payments director Paul Tate<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, ten out of the 11 defendants, have been\nsentenced, receiving various penalties from jail time to simple fines. Shortly\nafter the 2011 crackdown on PokerStars, the company agreed to forfeit $547\nmillion to the US and reimbursed $184 million Full Tilt Poker Players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Mr. Scheinberg had to withdraw from the company,\nhis son, Mark Scheinberg<\/strong>, took the reins over in 2013, and he agreed to\nforfeit an extra $50 million to settle additional traction with authorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Berman has thanked the Department of Justice and the\nFederal Bureau of Investigation<\/strong> and Homeland Security Investigations<\/strong>\nfor assisting in the matter and settling the case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Things have changed a lot since Mr. Scheinberg\u2019s era,\nhowever. Rational Group, the parent entity of PokerStars has been sold to Amaya\nGaming Group back in June 2014 for the significant $4.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rebranded company \u2013 The Stars Group \u2013 has also continued to add assets, specifically by securing another milestone deal with Sky Betting & Gaming back in April 2018<\/a>. TSG has also decided to merge with Flutter Entertainment<\/a>, creating yet another behemoth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg has pleaded guilty to running a multi-million-dollar online gambling business. The admission of guilt comes under certain conditions and is an opportunity for Mr. Scheinberg to clear his name. His incredible rise and the business he has built around PokerStars are, as Forbes put it, incredible. Mr. Scheinberg agreed to plead […]","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[764,432],"class_list":["post-10120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation","tag-isai-scheinberg","tag-pokerstars"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFighting UIEGA and Setting Up the Future of Poker<\/h2>\n\n\n\n