Minted Poker Rep Back Pedals on Funds ‘Seizure’ Claims

Following a rather abrupt exit of the Everleaf Gaming Network from the U.S. poker market and subsequent announcement by one of its online card room representatives that the U.S. Government had seized funds, that very same rep now claims the aforementioned seizure never happened.  More so, he denies ever making such an assertion despite the post being made by him on a public forum. 

The representative, who goes by the name of Neil, wrote that the U.S. Government’s Homeland Security agency had froze funds several weeks ago, prompting Everleaf to leave the market on Thursday.  Neil’s announcement sent shockwaves throughout an industry still reeling from last April’s indictments against executives of what was at the time three of the world’s largest online poker rooms.  Six high ranking officials from Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and UB.com were charged with money laundering and bank fraud.

Last week the rep from Minted Poker disclosed on the Two Plus Two posting forum: 

It Pains me to have to write this but ..... I always promised I would be Open, Honest and Upfront

I have just come from a conference call with one of the directors at Mintedpoker who has been liaising with the network until late this afternoon, a communication will be released tomorrow that will state that the network will no longer be able to facilitate US players.

I do not yet know the time scales, but it will be swift due to threats made to the network regarding legal action if they continue to service the US poker community.

Several weeks ago when the network lost one of the US processors, some of the processed funds were held back by what is now clear as the Department of Homeland Security, they have now also issued a letter to decease and desist operations in the USA, under threat of legal enforcement against the network. (I do not know these details).

The network owners have today sought legal advice and also met with the LGA, the Maltese Licensing Authority, who have advised them that due to the nature of the threat and the current climate, the network needs to withdraw its services from US customers.

I really understand how this will worry our players especially those in the US, but I also wish to reinforce that ALL monies held by ALL poker players, US and rest of world, are secure and ring fenced.

I have been informed that the Network and LGA will now commence proceedings with Homeland Security, as to how these funds are returned to players, hopefully once agreed the cash out process will be swift, so as not to cause undue stress to the parties involved.

I do not have many other details to give you at this point in time so please bear with me, as always I will be here to help if possible.

All European funds are safe and the European network will continue, the only noticeable change will be the network will shortly change all accounts into Euro accounts and of course the American players will be missing from the tables.

I know my feelings wont help anyone effected really, but I also wanted you to know that personally I am gutted !

Not for Mintedpoker we can continue, as a European based poker room, but for the thousands of American players who have quite happily supported us and made Mintedpoker their home.

Poker has been part of my life for 20+ years and I was introduced to it in the USA, it seems wrong to me that the people of the US are now forced into non participation or one with a narrow choice of participation.

I really want to thank the US players and wish you all the best with regulation, which I hope wont turn out to be a disaster, or poker and to some extent freedom of choice in the US really has ended.

All communications from the network I will post up here

Regards Neil.

By Monday afternoon, the Minted Poker rep came forward to announce he never made the claims that were posted on Thursday, by him.

Just to stipulate again, as it still seems to be being miss quoted, I never stated an ELG processor was seized, Bloggers and posters have done that since, don't know why, but it has made more explosive news.

Over the weekend, Gambling911.com was among the first websites to post an announcement made by another Everleaf Gaming skin, Luvin Poker, which shot down the suggestion that funds had been seized. 

To be clear, a payment processor did suffer a disruption last month, however, Everleaf was not known to have utilized payment solutions other than agent person-to-person methods for the past four months.  Details of last month's disruption were not immediately known, however, such occurences have become commonplace in recent years. 

- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher