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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 07:22 Modafinil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:06 KimTaeYeon wrote:
For the last time, online poker is NOT illegal in the US
In this instance, govt is targeting the sites for their PAYMENT PROCESSING techniques For the last time, IT IS. Q1. What state do you live in? A1. Whatever state you just said, it has a law against gambling at all, or unlicensed gambling. Doesn't have to be online, just gambling. Q2. What does that have to do with federal law? A2. Read UIGEA: Show nested quote +(10) UNLAWFUL INTERNET GAMBLING.
(A) IN GENERAL.—The term 'unlawful Internet gambling' means to place, receive, or otherwise knowingly transmit a bet or wager by any means which involves the use, at least in part, of the Internet where such bet or wager is unlawful under any applicable Federal or State law in the State or Tribal lands in which the bet or wager is initiated, received, or otherwise made. So as soon as any poker site receives your bet, anyone else's bet, and then transmits that bet to you or anyone else in a state where gambling is illegal, the poker site has violated the UIGEA. If your state allows high stakes poker with no regulation (it doesn't), then online poker is legal there (it isn't). Just because there is no explicit federal law that says "online poker is illegal in the US" doesn't mean anything. Further, a later section states, Show nested quote +§ 5363. Prohibition on acceptance of any financial instrument for unlawful Internet gambling
No person engaged in the business of betting or wagering may knowingly accept, in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling: and then it proceeds to say "your money" in about 500 different ways. Online poker is illegal in the United States. End of story. Some sites thought they could get around it and are now paying for that. Some sites were wise enough to get out before they screwed themselves over (like PartyPoker and PacificPoker).
You're wrong dude, you don't know what you are talking about. transmitting money means sending it to the site. when you make bets the money is already on the site you aren't transmitting anything.
also, there's been multiple precedents set for poker being a "game of skill".
you shouldn't be so confident when you're wrong, anyways. or it's at least highly debated and hasn't been definitively interpreted one way or another
(but pretty much all research I have done on the matter, which im sure is more extensive than what you've done, agrees with what I am saying here)
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For those of you saying internet poker isn't illegal, the question has always been "When will someone challenge it in court?" Clearly the big poker sites do not believe it violates the wire act, or any other gambling statutes. This will be the first federal test for online poker, sad it had to come about this way.
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On April 16 2011 07:19 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 06:59 Jibba wrote:On April 16 2011 06:43 Soap wrote:
Doesn't help that there are conservative officials that would prefer gambling to be evicted from the world, but the real difficulty is the same as always, the people who are in good faith and just want to play some games are silent. If they could get a cut, there'd be no qualms about it. I know people here are extremely invested in poker, but a lot of you would be cheering for the DoJ if it had been one of the other multi-billion dollar companies abusing loopholes and using offshore bank accounts. A dirty business got caught. Some of you are starting to sound like hardcore libertarians, especially the Europeans. :x Except pokerstars isn't an american business in the first place. What they got caught doing was breaking laws to bypass the roadblocks the U.S. government was intentionally putting in their way. They weren't actually harming anyone, nor taking money from anyone. This is a situation the DOJ wanted to happen, the DOJ was never in the right in the first place they just wanted a cut of what wasn't theirs.
So i've read through a lot of the posts in this tread (unfortunately not all), couldn't we consider the following:
While i understand that pokerstars isn't an american business, their money WAS in american banks. They could have had mostly Non-US Money, but the important thing is that all of the money was passing through us, and that's how they were able to freeze it. It's not like they called UBS and had switzerland freeze all the Swiss Bank accounts or anything like that.
While I personally don't have any problem with online poker, I can understand their legal ground of basically, "coming into our house and breaking our rules"
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On April 16 2011 07:26 Demonace34 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:16 travis wrote:On April 16 2011 07:14 Demonace34 wrote:
Maybe I don't understand online poker at all, but why would anyone leave over 1k in there on a daily basis? Just cash out your money once per week, and put in enough to last you the next 2 or whatever. To be honest, virtual money in computer systems scares the shit out of me, so I would never keep more money than I felt I could lose in anything except an FDIC bank. Hope everything works out for you guys, but hopefully this will be a lesson for people to be more careful with the amount of money they have tied up in these sites. Yes.. you don't understand poker at all.
Just cash out your money once per week, and put in enough to last you the next 2 or whatever.
what does this even mean? like, what are you saying? There are plenty of players who can only play 1 buyin with $1000. And good bankroll management might require, say. 50 buyins. Or even 100. Or more. So to play their stakes they have to have $100,000 online. For higher stakes players it would be higher. I was asking a question... I see my newbie friends that play on these sites with 200-400 bucks. I would figure that people would budget how much they put in weekly and only ever put enough in to play for however long they desired/lost or won it all. Next time I post my opinion or ask a question about a topic in the general forums, I'll be sure to look up more information... good luck on everyone getting their money back.
I wasn't upset or trying to scold you or anything, please don't take offense because it wasn't my intention.
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well thats fucked i put $10 into pokerstars yesterday.
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On April 16 2011 07:18 Slithe wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:02 Modafinil wrote:
I think you guys thinking that the government could just legalize and tax online gambling are forgetting that plenty of American Christians think that gambling is a horrible sin and should be illegal. And plenty of non-Christians think it's socially destructive and want it banned regardless of religious reasons.
There isn't really a lot of support for fully legalized online gambling in America. Maybe 50/50 at best. Kind of like weed. People are within their rights to have differing moral views. The problem is that those people who don't support gambling and weed are fundamentally misguided in thinking that it's the government's job to impose such restrictions. It is unconstitutional, and they are being distinctly un-American by pushing such legislation.
No, it's not unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution protects your right to gamble, and the Founders were all very against gambling to begin with. The ability of the government to regulate "vices" like gambling, alcohol, and prostitution was well-accepted at the time and well-understood to begin within the police powers that are reserved to the States.
Further, no Constitutional interpretation since then would interpret anything in the Constitution to provide a "right to gamble". If anything, commerce clause jurisprudence would simply provide an avenue for even the federal government to regulate gambling, in addition to the States.
The Constitution is not a blank check by which you can write your own beliefs.
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ESPN's Poker Beat reporter is reporting that the indicted sites will all be shut down within 48 hours. So get your money ASAP.
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On April 16 2011 07:29 Layden wrote:
For those of you saying internet poker isn't illegal, the question has always been "When will someone challenge it in court?" Clearly the big poker sites do not believe it violates the wire act, or any other gambling statutes. This will be the first federal test for online poker, sad it had to come about this way.
Internet pokers legality varies on a state by state basis. For example in WA, online poker is not really legal. I'm sure this goes the same for various other states.
Im saying this because as I'm reading this thread the idea of State Laws does not seem to come up in any discussion. Some people are saying "online poker illegal", other saying "no its not", when in reality in some places in the US, online poker is in fact illegal, while in other places it is not.
Furthermore these seizures have nothing to do with the legality of online poker in the US, but based on bank fraud. Why is the question of poker legality coming into play at all?
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On April 16 2011 07:32 Modafinil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:18 Slithe wrote:On April 16 2011 07:02 Modafinil wrote:
I think you guys thinking that the government could just legalize and tax online gambling are forgetting that plenty of American Christians think that gambling is a horrible sin and should be illegal. And plenty of non-Christians think it's socially destructive and want it banned regardless of religious reasons.
There isn't really a lot of support for fully legalized online gambling in America. Maybe 50/50 at best. Kind of like weed. People are within their rights to have differing moral views. The problem is that those people who don't support gambling and weed are fundamentally misguided in thinking that it's the government's job to impose such restrictions. It is unconstitutional, and they are being distinctly un-American by pushing such legislation. No, it's not unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution protects your right to gamble, and the Founders were all very against gambling to begin with. The ability of the government to regulate "vices" like gambling, alcohol, and prostitution was well-accepted at the time and well-understood to begin within the police powers that are reserved to the States. Further, no Constitutional interpretation since then would interpret anything in the Constitution to provide a "right to gamble". If anything, commerce clause jurisprudence would simply provide an avenue for even the federal government to regulate gambling, in addition to the States. The Constitution is not a blank check by which you can write your own beliefs.
Yea you're right, I just rechecked and there wasn't anything of that nature in the Constitution. I was misremembering the Libertarian views of the Harm principle as a Constitutional right.
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On April 16 2011 07:32 Modafinil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:18 Slithe wrote:On April 16 2011 07:02 Modafinil wrote:
I think you guys thinking that the government could just legalize and tax online gambling are forgetting that plenty of American Christians think that gambling is a horrible sin and should be illegal. And plenty of non-Christians think it's socially destructive and want it banned regardless of religious reasons.
There isn't really a lot of support for fully legalized online gambling in America. Maybe 50/50 at best. Kind of like weed. People are within their rights to have differing moral views. The problem is that those people who don't support gambling and weed are fundamentally misguided in thinking that it's the government's job to impose such restrictions. It is unconstitutional, and they are being distinctly un-American by pushing such legislation. No, it's not unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution protects your right to gamble, and the Founders were all very against gambling to begin with. The ability of the government to regulate "vices" like gambling, alcohol, and prostitution was well-accepted at the time and well-understood to begin within the police powers that are reserved to the States. Further, no Constitutional interpretation since then would interpret anything in the Constitution to provide a "right to gamble". If anything, commerce clause jurisprudence would simply provide an avenue for even the federal government to regulate gambling, in addition to the States. The Constitution is not a blank check by which you can write your own beliefs.
Agreed, but part of the problem now is the federal government is so strong in relation to states that when it makes ridiculous rulings like UIGEA it is virtually impossible to protest them. Not to mention that they can simply tack this on as a clause in a completely unrelated bill is beyond ludicrous.
From an idealistic stance people should be free to possess private funds and to dispose of them as they see fit.
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On April 16 2011 07:29 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:22 Modafinil wrote:On April 16 2011 07:06 KimTaeYeon wrote:
For the last time, online poker is NOT illegal in the US
In this instance, govt is targeting the sites for their PAYMENT PROCESSING techniques For the last time, IT IS. Q1. What state do you live in? A1. Whatever state you just said, it has a law against gambling at all, or unlicensed gambling. Doesn't have to be online, just gambling. Q2. What does that have to do with federal law? A2. Read UIGEA: (10) UNLAWFUL INTERNET GAMBLING.
(A) IN GENERAL.—The term 'unlawful Internet gambling' means to place, receive, or otherwise knowingly transmit a bet or wager by any means which involves the use, at least in part, of the Internet where such bet or wager is unlawful under any applicable Federal or State law in the State or Tribal lands in which the bet or wager is initiated, received, or otherwise made. So as soon as any poker site receives your bet, anyone else's bet, and then transmits that bet to you or anyone else in a state where gambling is illegal, the poker site has violated the UIGEA. If your state allows high stakes poker with no regulation (it doesn't), then online poker is legal there (it isn't). Just because there is no explicit federal law that says "online poker is illegal in the US" doesn't mean anything. Further, a later section states, § 5363. Prohibition on acceptance of any financial instrument for unlawful Internet gambling
No person engaged in the business of betting or wagering may knowingly accept, in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling: and then it proceeds to say "your money" in about 500 different ways. Online poker is illegal in the United States. End of story. Some sites thought they could get around it and are now paying for that. Some sites were wise enough to get out before they screwed themselves over (like PartyPoker and PacificPoker). You're wrong dude, you don't know what you are talking about. transmitting money means sending it to the site. when you make bets the money is already on the site you aren't transmitting anything. also, there's been multiple precedents set for poker being a "game of skill". you shouldn't be so confident when you're wrong, anyways. or it's at least highly debated and hasn't been definitively interpreted one way or another (but pretty much all research I have done on the matter, which im sure is more extensive than what you've done, agrees with what I am saying here)
Ok, let's try this one step at a time, since you couldn't handle it all at once.
Q1. What state do you live in?
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On April 16 2011 07:36 Ingenol wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:32 Modafinil wrote:On April 16 2011 07:18 Slithe wrote:On April 16 2011 07:02 Modafinil wrote:
I think you guys thinking that the government could just legalize and tax online gambling are forgetting that plenty of American Christians think that gambling is a horrible sin and should be illegal. And plenty of non-Christians think it's socially destructive and want it banned regardless of religious reasons.
There isn't really a lot of support for fully legalized online gambling in America. Maybe 50/50 at best. Kind of like weed. People are within their rights to have differing moral views. The problem is that those people who don't support gambling and weed are fundamentally misguided in thinking that it's the government's job to impose such restrictions. It is unconstitutional, and they are being distinctly un-American by pushing such legislation. No, it's not unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution protects your right to gamble, and the Founders were all very against gambling to begin with. The ability of the government to regulate "vices" like gambling, alcohol, and prostitution was well-accepted at the time and well-understood to begin within the police powers that are reserved to the States. Further, no Constitutional interpretation since then would interpret anything in the Constitution to provide a "right to gamble". If anything, commerce clause jurisprudence would simply provide an avenue for even the federal government to regulate gambling, in addition to the States. The Constitution is not a blank check by which you can write your own beliefs. Agreed, but part of the problem now is the federal government is so strong in relation to states that when it makes ridiculous rulings like UIGEA it is virtually impossible to protest them. Not to mention that they can simply tack this on as a clause in a completely unrelated bill is beyond ludicrous. From an idealistic stance people should be free to possess private funds and to dispose of them as they see fit.
Yeah, I agree. We should have a Constitutional Convention to overhaul the thing.
Until then, you don't have a constitutional right to gamble.
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Canada7170 Posts
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LOL I just made my first deposit to pokerstars last night and made a few bucks... Hope I didn't just auto burn it.
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i am absolutely embarrassed for my shitty government and i'm really sorry the rest of the world has to put up with american stupidity
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wouldn't us citizens be able to just transfer whatever amount of cash they wish to withdraw to a european friend or w/e and have them do it?
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really glad i never got into online poker because a lot of people are about to lose a whole lot of money.
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On April 16 2011 07:41 rycho wrote:
i am absolutely embarrassed for my shitty government and i'm really sorry the rest of the world has to put up with american stupidity
Um, the rest of the world operates with this same philosophy with respect to a host of different issues, so rest assured they're very familiar with stupid and shitty governments.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
My libertarian side says that these laws are completely unnecessary. That said, "don't gamble if you can't afford to lose," as the saying goes...
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On April 16 2011 07:42 universalwill wrote:
really glad i never got into online poker because a lot of people are about to lose a whole lot of money.
To be fair, I made a whole lot more money over the last few years playing poker than I'm losing right now. What sucks more is that I can't play for a living anymore. And we might even get the money back, like what happened with Neteller...of course it could take 6+ months.
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EPT
