Aussie poker informer helps US shut down American online poker industry

Elie faces between six months to a year in jail after pleading guilty to helping offshore online poker companies make and receive payments from their customers in the US.

Elie, who originally faced 85 years in jail, admitted to assisting Tzvetkoff's Queensland-based payment processing company, Intabill, disguise US poker payment transactions for websites PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker. "I knew that my conduct was wrong," Elie told a hearing in a Manhattan court, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Tzvetkoff, who once had an estimated fortune of us$ 86.1 million and lived in a us$ 28.3 million home on the Gold Coast, faced a 75-year jail sentence after his arrest in a Las Vegas casino in 2010. After languishing in jail for months, Tzvetkoff brokered a deal with US prosecutors and his whereabouts has not been made public.

Last week court documents revealed Tzvetkoff would be a key government witness at Elie's April 9 trial and he had handed over more than 90,000 documents, including emails, to prosecutors.

In a major crackdown on April 15, 2011, dubbed "Black Friday" by the poker industry, US authorities shut down PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker from operating in the US. On the same day, authorities announced Elie, along with the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, had been charged.

Tzvetkoff is expected to be a key prosecution witness in the upcoming trials of the poker company heads. Intabill allegedly processed more than us$ 1 billion illegal transactions between US gamblers and internet gaming websites, but Tzvetkoff's high-flying days ended in 2009 when the internet poker companies accused him of stealing us$ 100 million. Elie was also accused of fleecing us$ 4 million from PokerStars.

The details of Tzvetkoff's plea deal with prosecutors is unknown as documents in the case are sealed and "placed in a vault", according to court records. Elie was granted bail after Monday's plea deal.