ePassporte No Longer an option for Online Poker Transfers in US

April 19, 2008

In recent days, news has been traveling online that the third party broker, ePassporte, is out of business in the United States. ePassporte was a way for online players to transfer money back and forth to their poker operator without breaking the rules of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. With the passing of this act players have found it extremely difficult to get money to their online operators and receive money since the UIGEA stops all money transactions from online gambling sites. A letter has been making its way around the online world that was written by ePassporte to online poker site Pitbull Poker. Gregory Elias from ePassporte states in the letter that Pitbull Poker’s account has been suspended and the agreement the Company had with ePassporte has been terminated. The letter goes on to state that they(ePassporte) does not believe that the transactions they receive and process are illegal but they are not going to take a chance with the US Government. Elias also says that the New York Office of the United States District Attorney is investigating the Company.

Having seen the letter myself this is pretty much all it says. The termination happened on Friday April 11th at 1:00 PM PDT and the letter was signed by the Managing Director, Gregory Elias, and the United International Trust, NV Managing Director. It is really unclear of why ePassporte quickly exited the US market. It could be because the “just” found out about the investigation but I do not believe this is true. The Company had been handling Netellers ex-customers for a while so they had to know eventually something would be coming their way.

It could be other reasons but with the recent testimonies made by people from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department as well as the Banking sector that claimed their was a lack of definition of the UIGEA not to mention the movement being made by Barney Frank and other representatives that would overturn the UIGEA. Hopefully this whole mess will be resolved soon and all types of money transfers will be available for United States players to play on any internet gambling site.