Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Canadian-based Citadel Commerce, another popular e-Wallet payment processor used by poker players to fund their online accounts, announced Wednesday that effective immediately they "will no longer offer financial processing to non-domestic Internet Gaming merchants for USA consumers." This comes shortly after NETELLER announced they will no longer take online gambling transactions from US customers, following the arrest by the US of their founders Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre on January 15. Referring to the NETELLER arrests, Citadel's parent group, ESI Entertainment Systems Inc, stated that "....this decision was made by the ESI Board of Directors in the light of recent US Department of Justice enforcement actions against financial processors executives." ESI also noted that the closure to the US Market "will have a material impact on the financial condition of the Company as a substantial part of its revenues was derived from non-domestic Internet Gaming merchants for USA consumers."