While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much money is involved when it comes to frozen online poker accounts since Black Friday, John Pappas, the head of the Poker Players Alliance, is willing to make an educated guess. According to the head of the US’s most active online poker advocacy groups, Pappas believes that between $100 million and $500 million may be involved.
“It’s difficult to estimate,” admitted Pappas. “There are people like myself who had $56 on account. “But there’s also an estimated 100,000 professional players who have tens of thousands… a select few may have even a couple million dollars on account.”
The Executive Director said that it would be easy to say that tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions dollars have been held in limbo because of the Department of Justice’s actions.
“It’s impossible to put an exact number on it,” said Pappas. “I would estimate at least $100 million, if not as much as $500 million.”
Pappas spoke about the slow process ahead for players to get their money back from the sites that were targeted on Black Friday, namely Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, Absolute Poker and UB.com. “We understand that players on PokerStars have been receiving payouts already,” said Pappas. “Full Tilt Poker is in the process of providing those payouts to players. I don’t believe it’s happened in any substantive form yet, although I think they’re just working through some internal issues to get the money back to players.”
He was more concerned for players who had their money in accounts at Absolute Poker and UB.com. “Absolute Poker remains a big question mark,” he admitted.
Comments are closed.