The US Department of Justice has reached a settlement with Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker to return their domain names to facilitate the return of players’ funds. The settlement brings both parties into agreement that American players can use the websites to regain their funds but not to play poker for money. An independent monitor will be appointed to assure compliance with the agreement. There is no indication of a timeline for the return of player’s money, but Manhattan US Attorney Preet Baharara does allege that the companies involved have always been free to return player’s money. That at least indicates it can happen very soon. An interesting note from the Government’s press release is that Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are free to enter into the same agreement, but as of this date have yet to do so. So it sounds like Absolute and UB’s incompetence strikes yet again!

The long and short of it is: if you played on Pokerstars or Full Tilt Poker you should be getting your money back sooner than you thought! I thought it would take longer to close the door on this particular side of Black Friday, so huzzah for good news. You can read the press release here: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/pokerdomainnameuseagreementspr.pdf