PokerStars Founder Plead Guilty and Faces Prison

In one of the last chips to fall from the Black Friday fiasco years back, the PokerStars founder plead guilty to operating an illegal online gambling business and could go to prison. Isai Scheinberg entered his plea in a New York federal court earlier this week..

The plea comes two months after the 73-year-old duel citizen of Canada and Israel originally surrendered to U.S. authorities. He was released on $1 million bail after initially pleading not guilty to all charges. Scheinberg is now facing up to five years behind bars.

Scheinberg founded PokerStars in 2001 and continued to operate in the legal grey area that existed in the United States after 2006. He and 10 other executives of other major online poker rooms were charged with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling in April 2011 on what the poker world refers to as “Black Friday.”

The government seized the domain names and funds of online poker rooms that were still operating in the U.S. after the 2006 passage of the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. For nearly nine years, Scheinberg stayed outside of the U.S. and continued to operate his business.

With Scheinberg’s admission of guilt, all 11 charged have now entered guilty pleas. You can read more about how the PokerStars founder plead guilty and the fallout at Card Player.