Co-Founder Of Absolute Poker Pleads Guilty

by

In April of this year we told you that several gambling poker sites were seized by the Feds & the owners charged with a bunch of Federal crimes.

Yesterday,  the co-founder and the director of payment processing for Absolute Poker, Brent Beckley, pleaded guilty in Manhattan’s federal court to conspiring to violate the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and commit bank fraud.

“I knew that it was illegal to accept credit cards from players to gamble on the Internet,” Beckley reportedly said to U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Ellis.

He faces between 12 months and 18 months in prison. Sentencing is set for April 19.

Beckley is a U.S. citizen who is residing in Costa Rica, where Absolute Poker is based.

Beckley returned to the U.S. voluntarily yesterday and surrendered to law enforcement agents.

Beckley also agreed to forfeit $300,000, which the government said constituted the proceeds of his illegal conduct.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  1. TLD says

    The government thinks that the co-founder of Absolute Poker only made $300k? Maybe that is how much he would make in a week.

  2. JJ says

    “The government thinks that the co-founder of Absolute Poker only made $300k? Maybe that is how much he would make in a week.”

    In a day more likely.

  5. Tim Davids says

    Online Poker should be legal anyway. Buckets of taxes and dollars are leaving the country. Prohibition didn’t work either but at least the dollars stayed within the boarders.

    Poker is not the devil, Governments running lottos is 🙂

  6. HH says

    The Federal Wire Act (1961) is an interesting law. Its language is ambiguous. Maybe DOJ should go after Day Traders and banks’ Wall St. trading desks? Are they not making wagers and bets over the wire?

    Isn’t it true that one top domainer once wanted to get into the online casino business?

    The PartyPoker founder is an IIT grad and a billionaire on the Forbes list. He just paid a small (lol) $300M fine. “Thank you for your payment.”

    Maybe the AbsolutePoker guy’s real mistake was not facilitating online gambling to US residents but defrauding US payment processors?

    Did the PartyPoker guy also defraud US payment processors?