Written by Sadonna | Monday, April 18th, 2011

The online gambling options in the US are starting to look to shrink more and more. After the shocking charges filed against three of the largest online poker sites this past Friday, US players have now received yet another big blow – but this time, it’s in the online casino department.

The news has given the owners of Rival Gaming to begin the process of shutting down some of their internet casinos to players in the USA.  The announcement of the Rival Gaming shutdown in the United States became public a day after the shutdown of Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker in the US.

Rival Gaming casinos have began the process of shutting their doors to US players effective immediately, which includes processing cashouts for any existing balances in their players’ accounts.  However, TO BE CLEAR, the announcement only involves the closing of their white label brands to USA customers – aka their smaller casino brands.

Such online casinos as Spartan Slots, Box24 and SlotoCash will STILL BE AVAILABLE though in the United States, and the three faces of Rival Casinos will still be accepting deposits from North America and abroad.  The news has not placed any fear into the mega casinos, and they have no plans of pulling out of the market here in the states any time soon.

Rival Gaming powers many US RTG casinos and the company has most likely decided to stop service in the US due to the charges filed against Full Tilt, PokerStars and Absolute Poker. All three poker rooms were charged with performing illegal online gambling activities.

Several people were charged in the case including Scott Tom of Absolute Poker, Isai Scheinberg of PokerStars and both Nelson Burtnick and Ray Bitar of Full Tilt Poker. The FBI and the US Department of Justice worked to shutdown the poker rooms and they have seized the domain names of all three poker rooms. Now when a player tries to visit the sites they see a message from both the FBI and the DOJ.

Part of the message reads: “Conducting, financing, managing, supervising, directing, or owning all or part of an illegal gambling business is a federal crime. (18 U.S.C. 1955) For persons engaged in the business of betting or wagering, it is also a federal crime to knowingly accept, in connection with the participating of another person in lawful Internet gambling, credit, electronic fund transfers, or checks. (31 U.S.C. 5363 & 5365)”

With such serious charges at stake it makes perfect sense for other gambling companies to move out of the US. No one really knows what is going to happen so for now, online gamblers will have to sit back and see what happens. It could be very soon that we have nowhere to play poker or casino games if the DOJ and FBI continue their crackdown on online gambling.

Here is the full list of Rival Gaming white labels that are closing down to USA players:

• 21 Grand Casino
• Always Vegas
• Bet821 Casino
• Club Vegas USA
• Cocoa Casino
• Connect2Casino
• DaVinci’s Gold
• Dendera Casino
• Fortune Reel
• Irish Luck Casino
• Lion Slots Casino
• Mayan Fortune Casino
• Orangegamez Casino
• Pantasia Online Casino
• Paradise 8 Casino
• Planet23 Casino
• Ricardos Casino
• Rockbet Casino
• Royal Apollo
• Ruby Royal
• Sahara Sands Casino
• Simon Says Casino
• Slots Jackpot Casino
• Slots of Fortune
• Spintime
• Superior Casino
• SupremePlay Casino
• This is Vegas
• Tradition Casino
• Tropica Casino
• Vegas Regal Casino
• Vegas Sky Casino
• VegasDays Casino

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