Daniel Negreanu Victim of Operation Choke Point

No Merry Christmas or Happy New Year from Bank of America for pro poker player Daniel Negreanu as the financial institution recently closed out his account. The 41-year-old Canadian residing in Las Vegas is a high profile player who has accumulated over $32 million in winnings through the years. On December 23, Negreanu tweeted: "Apparently Bank of America no longer wants my business. They are closing all my accounts because I put too much money in them from poker???" He further announced that his credit card was also closed tweeting: "MasterCard just cancelled my credit card for no reason whatsoever... And I'm rich! How dumb are they? Haha." Reportedly, Negreanu is not the only poker player on banks' radar as Haralabos Voulgaris, Doug Polk, and Ankush Mandavia have experienced similar treatment. Negreanu says that the financial actions were brought on by a US Department of Justice initiative known as Operation Choke Point, which investigates financial institutions for activity related to high risk fraudulent activity. According to Wikipedia, the initiative is described as: “Operation Choke Point is an initiative of the United States Department of Justice that was announced in 2013, which is investigating banks in the United States and the business they do with payment processors, payday lenders, and other companies believed to be at higher risk for fraud and money laundering. “This operation, disclosed in August 2013 Wall Street Journal story has been accused of bypassing due process.; the government is pressuring the financial industry to cut off the companies' access to banking services, without first having shown that the targeted companies are violating the law. As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, critics believe "it's a thinly veiled ideological attack on industries the Obama administration doesn't like, such as gun sellers".”