Written by :
Published on :
PokerAddict.net is the latest industry news site to blast the Everleaf Gaming poker network for its sudden withdrawal from the U.S. market, suggesting it has more to do with liquidity issues than with a seizure of funds confirmed this past October.
While Everleaf is yet to release an official statement, the company abruptly stopped allowing U.S. players last Thursday without notice. Customers were literally shut out of their accounts. News quickly surfaced that funds belonging to a payment processing company connected to Everleaf had been seized last October. That information was confirmed on Wednesday with the seizure affidavit going public.
Funds from a Liechtenstein-based payment processor were seized by a Task Force of the Secret Service field office in Seattle, Washington following a lengthy investigation begun around February 2009. The seizure affidavit specifies that online gambling is illegal in the state of Washington. In fact, Washington is the only state in the U.S. that makes playing online poker a Class C felony.
Only three of the Everleaf Gaming Network’s rooms were mentioned in the Seizure affidavit, including the network’s own room. While Everleaf card rooms appeared to use the processor, Causash Establishment, exclusively, Everleaf itself did not seem to have been the target. The same field office went after payment processors utilized by both BetUS.com and PokerStars a year earlier.
It is interesting to point out that Everleaf ceased sending bank wire withdrawals around the same time the affidavit seizure request was sent out but it is also interesting to note that the company appeared to utilize Western Union almost exclusively after last April’s high profile indictments of executives from the three largest US-facing online poker companies, Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and UB.com. Only a limited number of players appear to have received bank wires over the post-April 15 period and this is well documented in the seizure warrant whereby the actual amount of funds seized is quite nominal.
The website PokerAddict.net wrote a riveting piece on why non-US players should be worried.
This is an extremely unprofessional way to change a company policy. Players still have not been emailed with an explanation, and there have been no press releases made by Everleaf Gaming. Everleaf Gaming licensees have only been given limited information.
While Everleaf Gaming claims that business will continue outside the US, players in other countries are reporting slow payouts. Many cashout requests to European ewallets such as Neteller and Moneybookers are over a month old. Only small cashouts have been processed to non US players in 2012, and there has only been one reported successful cashout since Everleaf Gaming banned U.S. players.
In essence, this may not be a U.S. problem. Players around the world should have learned a thing or two from what transpired with Full Tilt Poker. First it was the U.S. players getting screwed, later it was everybody else.
Unlike Full Tilt Poker, Everleaf is made up of over a dozen independent poker skins that relied on the network for its processing. Licensees appear to be in the same boat as their customers. Two rooms, Luvin Poker and Minted Poker, are working to keep their players informed of developments but, truth be told, it may be out of their hands at this point.
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
