Some European online gambling companies and online poker sites have lost billions of dollars and have seen their shares going to the floor after Congress decided to shut down the U.S. market by forcing the banks, credit card companies and other financial institutions to stop processing payments related to online gambling activities.

Many publicly traded European companies, including PartyGaming, bwin and 888.com were forced to leave the U.S market after Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act in 2006, however, the U.S continues with a possible criminal prosecution for activities before the bill was passed. That provoked the European Commission to start a formal investigation to determine if Washington was singling out EU companies for enforcement actions, while allowing U.S. online firms to work without any kind of restraints.

Rep Steve Cohen sent letter to Mukasey on July 29^th saying that the Justice Department does not have a good motive why to investigate and prosecute what he called "foreign operators who respected congressional intent in 2006 and withdrew from the market, while U.S. companies continue to operate uninterrupted."