In a day that will live in online poker lore for some time to come, the two largest sites in the industry, PokerStarsand Full Tilt Poker, have apparently banned real money players from the United States due to an indictment of the sites’ owners. A press release sent out by Full Tilt late Friday night broke the news: “As a result of this action, Full Tilt Poker has decided that it must suspend ‘real money’ play in the United States until this case is resolved. However, Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide peer-to-peer online poker services outside of the United States.”

The indictment names, among others, PokerStars founders Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate as well as Ray Bitar and Nelson Burtnick of Full Tilt Poker. A statement from the U.S. Department of Justice alleged that the two sites, as well as UB.comand Absolute Poker, “arranged for the money received from U.S. gamblers to be disguised as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls.”

On the cashout front, a message posted on Full Tilt’s website attempted to calm any panicked poker players: “Full Tilt Poker would like to assure all players that their funds remain safe and secure. Processing of both deposit and withdrawal requests is proceeding as normal and is still available to all of our players.”

Meanwhile, players outside of the United States on PokerStars were met with the following pop up contending that business was mostly proceeding as usual: “As you may have heard, we had had to suspend real money poker services to people based in the U.S. due to legal developments there. These developments are confined to the U.S. and do not have any impact on your ability to continue using our services.”

As late as the time of writing, which is around Midnight ET on Friday night, players from the United States still reported that they were able to hop online and compete on Full Tilt Poker as normal. Perhaps Full Tilt’s servers are still updating, but the press release was issued shortly before 10:00pm ET. PokerStars blocked real money action from the United States earlier in the day.

Bitar commented in the same Full Tilt Poker statement, “I am surprised and disappointed by the government’s decision to bring these charges. I look forward to Mr. Burtnick’s and my exoneration.”

One poster on PocketFives.com expressed his shock at the developments of Friday, which saw the two largest sites in the industry depart the U.S. market within a span of a few hours: “The sickest part about all of this is that there was no warning. How many full-time college students play just for that extra money in their pockets? And what about the full-time grinders who woke up today, went to reg up for their normal grind, and read a bullshit statement on their screen saying they’re not able to play anymore?”

Keep it tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest. Check out the ongoing thread in the Poker Sites forum.