Further fears for 600 Dublin jobs as poker site has licence suspended

An online gambling site which employs around 600 people in a Dublin subsidiary has had its licence to operate suspended by authorities in the Channel Islands, prompting fears for the future of the jobs.

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission in a statement last night said it had suspended the licences of Vantage Ltd, Oxalic Ltd, Filco Ltd and Orinic Ltd, which collectively trade as Full Tilt Poker.

"The decision to suspend these licenses follows a special investigation prompted by the

indictments unsealed by US Attorney General’s Office in the Southern District of New York

on 15 April 2011, during which grounds were found to indicate that these licensees and their

business associates were operating contrary to Alderney legislation," the Commission said in the statement.

The company Pocket Kings, based in the Cherrywood business centre in Dublin, is a service provider to Full Tilt Poker and employs around 600 people here in areas such as IT support, fraud detection, marketing and customer services.

The latest developments follow the indictment in April of executives from the three largest online gambling sites in the US - Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker - with 11 people charged with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offences.

Among the accused is 39-year-old Raymond Bitar, chief executive of Full Tilt Poker, and a director of Pocket Kings.

A regulatory hearing on the suspension of Full Tilt Poker's eGambling licence will be held on London on July 26.

The fulltiltpoker.com website today appeared to be offline, with a 'maintenance in progress' notice posted on its homepage.