Home / Poker News July 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Ira Rubin Sentenced
The Poker Grapevine – Ira Rubin Sentenced
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2012-07-27 14:36
It appears that as more and more people get sentenced in connection with online poker’s Black Friday, the harsher the sentences get. Ira Rubin was one of the payment processors directly involved with the illegal transfer and the concealing of the funds destined to
online poker rooms Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and the two Cereus operators. As such, a variety of severe charges were brought against Rubin, in light of which he was looking at a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison. Like the other Black Friday guys sentenced before him, Rubin struck a plea agreement, but unlike the above said defendants, instead of mere months, he got stuck with a 3 year prison sentence.
According to both the defense and the prosecution, Rubin was supposed to get off with 18-24 months, but Judge Lewis Kaplan sought to make an example of him, considering him an ‘unreformed conman and fraudster’. The final sentence will credit Rubin for 9 months he’s already spent behind bars. He will thus spend 31 months in prison if he behaves well.
It is also part of the deal that after his release, Rubin will not be allowed to pursue a business in the financial sector or in payment processing.
In other news: Shuffle Master, the company which has recently given up on its plans to acquire the Ongame network, has received a license to provide interactive gambling systems in the state of Nevada. Shuffle Master are not the first company to pick up the coveted license: IGT and Bally Technologies received similar licenses a month ago.
Despite the license, Shuffle Master still have some ground to cover before they can actually get down to business: they have to have their online gaming technology tested by various state-authorized entities before they can begin offering online poker and online gambling solutions to Nevada casinos interested in creating an online portfolio.
There are around 30 other companies out there which have sought to obtain similar licenses.
