PokerStars Founder Pleads Guilty in US

Isai Scheinberg, the founder of PokerStars has pleaded guilty in the US to one charge of running an illegal online gambling business.

The charges date back to the infamous 2011 “Black Friday” where the US government effectively shut down all online poker in the US and caused the collapse of the then giant Full Tilt Poker business that showed without money flowing in from US players it was effectively bankrupt.

However PokerStars paid all players and in the end settled all debts of its competitor at Full Tilt.

Scheinberg was in Switzerland and following negotiations with US Federal law enforcement decided to fly to New York and voluntarily handed himself in to US agents. He was taken into custody and appeared in court where he pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Bail was set at $1 million and Scheinberg, however it is all but certain that the founder of what is still the world’s largest online poker platform will not serve a day in prison.

Olga Zverovich, the federal prosecutor in the case at the time told the court that, “We have an agreement in principle on the basic terms.” Meaning that an agreement is in place and the formality of the arrest and bail is effectively to remove the arrest warrants from Isai Scheinberg and to allow him access to future travel in the US.

Although pleading guilty to the one charge could mean a 12 to 18 month jail term, that may be reduced even further and then served on parole for a limited time.

A spokesperson for Mr Scheinberg said, He’s pleased to put the matter behind him, notably, all PokerStars players were paid back immediately and Mr. Scheinberg played an important role in ensuring that all of the players from other sites were repaid as well,”

In 2014 PokerStars was acquired by Amaya in a deal worth nearly $5 billion, currently PokerStars is again being sold to Flutter Group who already own Paddy Power and Betfair.