The US government has finally put some bite behind its bark, shutting down three of the biggest poker sites online: Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker.

We don’t usually dedicate much space in these pages to bad news, but sometimes in order to report the most relevant events in online gambling to its loyal base there’s no way around the murk and mire of negativity. Today is one such time, with word that none other than the F.B.I. has seized the domain names FullTiltPoker.com, PokerStars.com and AbsolutePoker.com for illegally doing business within the United States, effectively shutting down three of the world’s biggest poker sites.

Granted, with country specific sister sites like PokerStars.fr for French players and PokerStars.it for Italian players, for example, members of these poker stalwarts won’t be left out in the cold like their American counterparts. Of course, that won’t stop the companies running these sites from facing the potentially devastating blows of a U.S. federal indictment. But only time will tell the end effects of all that.

According to the notice, the government is not only targeting the purveyors of illegal online gambling at these sites but the players as well. We doubt that this means every active member of one (or more) of these sites residing in the U.S. will be served with a warrant themselves. But it does appear that any U.S. funds sitting in a real money account at one of these sites is as good as gone into federal coffers.