A little more than a year ago, conspicuously close to another US Federal bad news day, the online poker landscape in the United States changed forever. On April 15, 2011, just two days before the dreaded annual tax deadline, Federal Department of Justice authorities officially indicted three of the top online poker sites that operated in the United States. Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and UltimateBet/Absolute Poker were all issued immediate cease-and-desist orders, and were told they were in violation of several US banking laws. American online account holders with those three companies were not charged, but were stuck in a Catch-22 situation nonetheless.

Citing the Illegal Gambling Business Act of 1955, and the more recent 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), United States authorities named 11 defendants associated with those three main US online poker destinations. The charges claimed that those three companies and 11 individuals intentionally employed fraudulent account funding and withdrawal methods to step around the law, and even went as far as to deceive United States banks into processing their payments, which were deemed illegal. 75 bank accounts, several payment processors and 5 Internet domain names were restricted or entirely frozen.

The day became known as Black Friday because unwitting account holders at those three revered online poker destinations slowly but surely became locked out of their accounts, and that means they could not withdraw any funds that were rightfully theirs. Only a small number of those account holders ever received their money back. Currently however, many states are making an effort to legalize poker online. New Jersey, California and Nevada are at the forefront of passing legislation that would allow for legalized US online play and banking options, and New Jersey Senator Ray Lesniak says he feels confident his state will see real money online poker by the end of this year.

The long arm of the United States Judicial System is a scary competitor to say the least. So if that was the end of legal online US poker play, it would certainly be understood. However, online poker room owners and payment processors went back to the drawing board, and found legal banking and payment processing options that had been overlooked, allowing United States players legal online poker playing once again.

Several major players in the online poker industry, like Bovada and Intertops Poker remain open for US players. Since the new legislation only makes US banking and payment processing illegal for online gambling transactions, US players are free to legally play poker online. The only thing that has changed are the deposit and withdrawal methods which can be used, but the good news is that one year after Black Friday 2011, we can once again “Shuffle up and deal” online.  Lear more from our information on USA poker sites.