Pokerstars is an online poker site. Pokerstrategy is an educational training site. They are not the same site. The TSL3 is sponsored by pokerstrategy.com.
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Wire act only covers sports betting not poker, UIGEA is what they are nailing people for on this.
On April 16 2011 05:36 SonuvBob wrote: I guess the main question is whether the US can seize (seems very unlikely) or tie up money in non-US accounts. If not, then non-US players probably don't have much to worry about. I imagine the only money the sites have in US accounts is for their weird payment processing setup.
I think US players are only completely screwed if the sites don't have enough left over after the $3 billion lawsuit. I can't find much info on that, but it's probably split between the 4 sites, and they're all rich as fuck, so I don't think that's a problem. So your money will likely still be there, but actually getting it may be next to impossible (and you might not even be able to play with it either)
But that's just short term. Long term, no more American players I guess?
Can't find any useful info on 2p2 since the site's getting hammered right now. =/
Currently Active Users: 12243 (4076 members and 8167 guests) View Who's Online Most users ever online was 12,244, Today at 04:20 PM.
If you mean "non-US accounts" as in "non-US poker accounts", then yeah, that money is just as tied up as if its drug money. It's the subject of a civil asset forfeiture proceeding, which is LITERALLY how the FBI seizes drug money and drug dealer cars. It is the same proceeding. The money is not going anywhere; they don't care who deposited it.
In a few years, you could, in theory get your money back if you're an international player. But it's really unlikely there will be any money left then, after fines, assets forfeited as the result of the actual criminal acts, legal fees, etc. I would just expect it to be a full loss.
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Online gambling isn't illegal in the US.
Of all the inaccurate statements in this thread, this is probably the inaccuratest.
On April 16 2011 04:44 Kipsate wrote: Non-violent means little, it is more of a white-collar crime, and money laundering is quite a serious offense.
It's only called "money laundering" because their enterprise isn't legally condoned by the government. That's it. No money was stolen here. No people were wronged. No one was hurt. It doesn't take much critical thinking to see that nothing that the purveyors of the poker site did nothing inherently criminal or immoral. They broke unjust laws, and they will face an unjust punishment if convicted.
LOL, kind of like how not being allowed to print your own money is unjust right?
You're clueless. The government monopolization of money and the transformation of money from a commodity money to fiat money is one of the greatest problems facing the world today. Just wait until a few years from now when all the debt monetization that has been happening to finance our outrageous deficit spending rears its ugly head in the form of massive devaluation of the dollar.
Oh, so poker sites were intent on trying to decrease the deficit and save the dollar from devaluation. How could I have been so clueless?
No, the two issues have nothing to do with one another, but nice attempt at a goalpost shift. Do you concede to my original point that the sites did nothing immoral, and that any attempt to prosecute them is unjust, or are you going to continue trying to view the world through your broken moral lens?
Lol why did you quote me if you weren't trying to establish a connection between your original post and your subsequent reply to me? You're the one who brought up something completely irrelevant, and my post pointed out how your post had nothing to do with this point of discussion. Again, look at my original analogy to determine whether or not their actions were unjust, in my humble opinion.
so you call someoene clueless but you dont know that the government has not printed the money in almost 100 years. The Federal Reserve is a private bank and is about as "Federal" as Federal Express.
Here is a clip of Allen Greenspan, former head of the Fed saying there is no relation between the governent and the fed. Its not a secret, it never has been. You're clueless
Bollocks. And realize I'm not referring to literal printing but the more modern method which is the electronic creation of money. And yes, the relationship between the government and the Federal Reserve is a peculiar one, but it would be foolish to say the government has nothing to do with the Fed.
And it really says something about you that you defer to a former head of the Fed to enlighten us on the issue.
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Online gambling isn't illegal in the US.
Players are allowed to play poker online, there's no law against that. There is however a law that prohibits US financial institutions from doing transactions with the poker companies (a flimsy and unreasonable law but that's how it is).
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Online gambling isn't illegal in the US.
You can say this, and lots of people do for kicks or something, but it pretty much is illegal according to the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" which says:
[the Act] prohibits any person engaged in the business of betting or wagering (as defined in the Act) from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling."
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Bound? Maybe not, maybe one of the attempts to repeal this law and put in a system for legal online gambling (in general not for specific types) could've succeeded before this happened, but when it was made illegal the chance of this happening skyrocketed, not to mention the evidence for this case has probably been in the works for years.
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Online gambling isn't illegal in the US.
Of all the inaccurate statements in this thread, this is probably the inaccuratest.
? online poker is not illegal in the united states. Only the state of washington has passed a law regarding playing poker online. The UIGEA restricts banks from dealing with online gambling entities, not the players themselves.
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Online gambling isn't illegal in the US.
Not really true. UIGEA prohibits any financial institution from processing a bet, and almost every state outlaws gambling to some extent.
[the Act] prohibits any person engaged in the business of betting or wagering (as defined in the Act) from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling."
UIGEA doesn't criminalize players - it criminalizes banks that take process payments for it.
I'm sure there are plenty of innocent people who will be effected by this and I truly feel sorry for them. The degens however, and we all know these people I could give a flying fuck about.
On April 16 2011 05:36 Kipsate wrote: Even if the money laundering was not immoral, hell even if this whole case is immoral, even if they get convincted on immoral laws. They will be convicted, and people WILL lose money over it, argueing about the morality of this is irrellevant to the case as far as I can see. They broke the law, then they need to suffer the consequences, even if it is infact a stupid law. I also think that apart from money laundering they did nothing immoral.
Nothing discussed here on the forums will affect the outcome of the case. So? We don't discuss it? No. This is a discussion forum. I'm disgusted by the immorality of it - the poker sites have done nothing inherently wrong - so that's what I post about.
Actually, a law passed which made it difficult to process transactions from US customers. The poker sites cooked up schemes to bypass that. That's what they're being busted for. You can't break a law and then afterward try to claim you're not guilty on the grounds that the law is stupid (even if it is). If you want to contest a law, it should be done before it is passed, not after you've broken it.
On April 16 2011 05:02 laegoose wrote: I have 10k at stars and i've just withdrawn few k (well I've just requested to withdraw as usual, and system said 'ok np wait for e-mail' as usual)
However if US players will be banned from online-poker, this means hard time for most online-poker professionals since U.S. players lose nearly as much as the players from all other countries combined (according to http://www.pokertableratings.com/top-countries). There are plenty world-class U.S. professionals and shitload of casual players.
Can't they just move to non-US sites like i4poker or something?
Of course they can, however if 1000 mid-highstakes professionals move to ipoker, they won't be able to win a single cent because there isn't much fish (rake...). Also ipoker software and support are just awful.
Also Pokerstars are not 'US', they are from Isle of Man. Most likely they will continue to operate. But with 50% less fish games will be tough as hell if they don't lower the rake.
On April 16 2011 05:49 SpiffD wrote: Could someone please answer my dumb question, please If online gambling is illegal in the US, wasn't this bound to happen? Even if the companies are located elsewhere you have to live up to the laws of the country in which you reside, no?
Online gambling isn't illegal in the US.
Of all the inaccurate statements in this thread, this is probably the inaccuratest.
It's very accurate.
Btw my dns just updated and the wording of the FBI warning is quite amusing, apparently it's illegal to own an illegal gambling business. So if your gambling business is legal there's no problem, and online poker is very much so.
This whole mess is happeinig because some fine gentleman went out of their way to shit on UIGEA, nothing to really panic on.
This is quite funny lol, I can't see how people expect to get away with an illegal activity without repurcusions. I just find it unfortunate that it wasn't common knowledge that online gambling was illegal in the states, I personally had no clue. I don't see why people are pissed off at the US government about this, if i were you i'd be pissed at the money laundering, frauding founders that caused this siezure of the 3 sites and their accounts, because honestly it wasn't the internet gambling that set them off.
EPT
