Online Poker and Texas Holdem

World Series of Poker main event winner Jamie Gold has agreed to settle a dispute over half of the tournament’s $12 million grand prize, The Associated Press has learned.

In a joint, signed statement released Tuesday to the AP, Gold and Los Angeles-based TV producer Bruce Crispin Leyser agreed the matter should be resolved “without litigation.”

“Jamie always intended on sharing his winnings with Crispin,” the statement says. “Jamie and Crispin are happy to report they have fully settled this matter. They are pleased to be closing this chapter and look forward to continued success.”

Gold, a former Hollywood agent before he turned poker pro, defeated 8,772 players to win the World Series of Poker tournament last summer in Las Vegas.

The two did not make clear how much money Leyser would receive. Gold already withdrew $6 million, half of his take from winning the world’s largest poker tournament. The rest was frozen by court order after Leyser sued in August, claiming they had agreed to split the winnings.

Leyser said Gold agreed to the split in exchange for Leyser helping him find celebrities to play in the main event while wearing the “Bodog” label of an offshore Internet gambling site.

Leyser even kept what he said was a voicemail Gold left on his phone on the final day of the tournament in which Gold promised to pay Leyser “your half.”

At a December court hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Roger L. Hunt rejected a motion by Gold’s lawyers to lift an injunction set in September on the $6 million still at the tournament host, the Rio casino-hotel, and ordered the frozen funds be moved into an interest-bearing account. Hunt also indicated Leyser likely would win his claim to the $6 million.

The war on online gambling is hitting would-be bettors where it hurts the most - in the wallet.

According to wire reports, the FBI has seized the funds from tens of thousands of individual customer accounts from Neteller, a money transfer system popular among online gamblers.

Federal officials arrested Neteller founders Stephen Lawrence and John Lefebvre in January as part of a crackdown on Web-based betting.

Popular gambling hubs like BetOnSports, which accepts wagers on sporting events, and Neteller, which transferred funds between customers and gambling Web sites, stopped accepting wagers from U.S. customers. But those who still had funds in active Neteller accounts cannot recover those monies after the federal seizure.

According to the USA Today, about two-thirds of Neteller’s business came from transferring funds from U.S.-based bettors to gambling companies based outside America. That amounted to $7 billion dollars of business in 2005.

Nevertheless, Neteller did serve as a money-transfer service between financial institutions and online merchants that had nothing to do with betting. In addition, some Web sites used Neteller to pay freelance writers and other contract employees for their services.

In the USA Today, FBI agent Neil Donovan told the USA Today that “funds from Neteller are being held in court as potential evidence. Some customers may get their money back.”

On its Web site, Neteller declared that it had stopped transferring funds to and from online gambling sites for US customers as of Jan. 17. An FAQ on the same page as the notice said that the value of all customer funds was being held in independent trust accounts until withdrawal issues were resolved.

According to The Online Wire, attempts to reach Neteller spokespersons were unsuccessful.

The federal government has been trying for years to get a handle on online gambling, which revolutionized the sports betting industry as the Internet became an everyday tool for most Americans.

In 2002, a United State federal court ruled that the Federal Wire Act prohibits the transmission of electronic funds across state lines for the purpose of betting on sports, though it excluded games of chance such as poker.

For awhile, betting sites persisted by operating from offshore locales such as Costa Rica. But in October, 2006, the government closed this loophole by prohibiting transactions between banks and similar institutions and online gambling companies. This legislation, signed by President Bush on Oct. 13, 2006, was supported by the National Football League.