The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has frozen at least 24,000 online poker player accounts adding up to $30 million. The seizure of funds is a result of the violations of the Wire Act of 1961 and the Illegal Gambling Business Act and not the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. The funds of the poker players were held in the online payment processor Allied Systems, with Alliance Bank of Arizona seizing all the funds.

A statement made by the Poker Players Alliance stating “The PPA is disappointed that this unprecedented action has been commenced against law abiding poker players. The payment processor funds frozen by the Southern District of New York belong to individual poker players – not operators of poker websites – and do not represent the proceeds of any gambling activity, much less illegal gambling activity.

A federal prosecutor claimed that the funds in question were seized ‘because they constitute property involved in money laundering transactions and illegal gambling offenses’. Major poker sites like Pokerstars and Fulltilt declined to comment on this affair.

In 2007, a similar occurrence involved Neteller. In July of that year, the company managed to reach an agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to return frozen money to players to the amount of $60 million dollars and also paid a $136 million fine.

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