Over the weekened a large group of online poker rooms were shut down by the US government. DoylesRoom.com was among the group targeted. The rest of the poker rooms included the following: Truepoker.com, Betmaker.com, Betgrandesports.com, Betehorse.com, Beted.com, Bookmaker.com, 2Betsdi.com, Funtimebingo.com and Goldenarchcasino.com. All of these poker rooms were named in indictments that accused them of operating illegally and being a source of money laundering for illegal activities, including terrorism. The indictments were issued by representatives from the IRS, Homeland Security and Immigrations, as well as U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein

In a continuation of the attacks on online poker by the US Government, a Credit Union with ties to payment processing for poker rooms was recently taken over by the Federal Government. Online poker sites such as PokerStars have to use financial institutions to process payments, something that was made illegal in 2006 when the US passed the UIGEA, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Vensure FCU has been put in a conseratorship after a US Judge gave the credit union a restraining order in conjunction with its alleged practices of working with online poker rooms.

The PPA has the backing of Nevada Casinos in the fight for legal online poker in the US. Poker sites in the US have come under fire in the last month and the PPA wants to help. Now a recent announcement shows how much support the Poker Players Alliance is getting from land based casinos. The relationship between land based casinos and online poker rooms have always been hot and cold, but it seems that solidarity is the theme in recent weeks. Casinos such as Caesars recognize that if they could help create a legal online poker environment in the US they stand to profit by entering the market themselves.

Recently federal prosecutors in the US seized multiple homes as part of their crackdown on online poker sites. The homes belong to a former Playboy Playmate who married one of those online poker room employees who were indicted. Destiny Davis, Playboy Magazine’s Miss January in 2005, saw her Las Vegas mansion seized because she married Chad Elie, who was charged with conspiring to commit bank fraud by processing online poker site payments. One of the Full Tilt Poker founders, Ray Bitar, also had homes seized.

In a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing the U.S. Attorney General spoke about the online poker crackdown of April 14th. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that the actions take by the US were appropriate. He took the stand that because there are laws governing online poker rooms they should be enforced, and thus the action of seizing the domain names belonging to several large online poker sites was appropriate. His position is solely from a logic standpoint and does not deal with if he feels that the laws that exist are appropriate in and of themselves.

The Czech Government may want to act against online poker rooms, but the Czech police keep saying no. More than once the police have been approached by the Czech Government to shut down foreign poker sites. The police rebuff each attempt with the same response, that no crimes are being committed. According to Czech law online betting is legal as long as the it is fixed-odds style, and the five regulated and licensed companies that operate in the country do so. While no poker rooms are operating in country, those five betting companies are looking for the opportunity to do so.

When the US shut down major poker rooms by siezing domain names they affected global buisness, something that Antigua wants the country to answer for. Many online poker sites are based in Antigua, and officials from there and other conutries are concerned. The officials are thinking of taking action to the World Trade Organization, saying that the actions of the United States last Friday were illegal. The history of debate between the US's actions in the online poker world and countries like Antigua goes back to the US passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Online poker rooms that had their domain names seized by the US continued to run tournaments over the weekend. On last Friday the US Department of Justice shut down PokerStars, UB.com, Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker, but still held online tournaments. While US poker players could not play at many of the rooms, there were still enough players that the poker rooms would not have to pay overlays. An overlay is when a poker room guarantees a certain amount in a tourney prize pool but does not generate enough from the players to cover it, and thus has to pay it themselves.

The US State of Iowa may soon legalized online poker. A proposal to legalize online poker  is in discussion. The bill that would allow poker players to legally log on to poker sites to play was passed 9-6 by the Senate State Government Committee. The bill covers online poker as well as a few other gambling issues, such as horse track money divisions. In addition to the bill being considered in Iowa similar bills are being considered in Florida and New Jersey to make online poker playing legal. Currently the state of online poker is undefined.

The state of online poker may have done an about face in the US state of New Jersey. Where once people thought online poker sites would soon be welcome the rumors have started that the opposite will happen. Governor Chris Christie may be going to vote against the online gaming bill and use his powers to veto it. While the word among poker players was that Christie was favorably leaning towards the bill the rumor mill seems to have disproved that. It seems that on March 3rd Christie will take action to make online poker once and for all illegal in the state of New Jersey.