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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 07:41 hifriend wrote:
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?
No. The accounts at the banks are frozen. The banks are not moving the money in or out at all.
In theory, once the entire thing is resolved, non-US players could get their money out, if there is any money left. But that's (1) years away and (2) doubtful.
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On April 16 2011 07:30 reneg wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:19 travis wrote: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"
You know, I am not even 100% sure what the situation is. But pokerstars doesn't hold their money in U.S. banks, and the DOJ surely was looking for any opportunity to screw pokerstars over as they don't make money from pokerstars.
I would guess that the reality of the situation is that pokerstars was not cooperating with the unreasonable demands of the U.S. government and so eventually the U.S. government fucked them in the ass.
Just like when a business doesn't cooperate with the mafia, and then the mafia comes in and wrecks their store and breaks their leg.
If someone can tell me who was actually hurt by what pokerstars did, then I will be amazed.
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On April 16 2011 07:45 419 wrote:
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...
This is not the same. That line applies to losing money while gambling, meaning it's your own fault and lack of skill + luck.
This is more like "don't gamble if you can't afford to have your winnings stolen by the government"
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On April 16 2011 07:36 Modafinil wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:29 travis wrote: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?
Oregon
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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
I second this and apologize also ;(
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+ Show Spoiler +[QUOTE] On April 16 2011 06:33 relyt wrote:[QUOTE] On April 16 2011 06:32 TrANCE, wrote:[quote]I have about 200$ on PS, damn that would cover 2 Years GSL Permium  [/quote] lol is that how you translate how much $200 is for the SC community  For the people hateing on the goverment the people that run these site aren't stupid they know the laws and they should also know if the US goverment thinks your trying to defraud them in anyway they'll come down on them like a ton of bricks[/QUOTE]
People don't hate the government for enforcing the laws, they hate them for having shit laws to begin with.
Shit laws asin what? Fraud and money laundering laws i don't think the vast majority of tax payers would call " shit laws " If their spending the man power and money to pursue this it's oviously on a massive scale running into millions of dollars
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I have a couple hundred dollars in my FT account as well. But it doesn't really matter that much to me. I saw this coming years ago. If you think the U.S. government was going to turn a blind eye to this forever, you are fooling yourselves.
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On April 16 2011 07:48 TrANCE, wrote:
Shit laws asin what? Fraud and money laundering laws i don't think the vast majority of tax payers would call " shit laws " If their spending the man power and money to pursue this it's oviously on a massive scale running into millions of dollars
Do you even understand the situation? The reason they were engaging in fraud and money laundering was so that US citizens could play poker on their sites (i.e. do what they wanted with THEIR money). They weren't stealing money from anyone. They broke other laws to get around a terrible law: the UIGEA. Not saying what they did wasn't illegal but people are incensed because there is no reason playing online poker should have been rendered effectively illegal by the United States government in the first place.
Edit: quote tags messed up.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
On April 16 2011 07:46 Mailing wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:45 419 wrote:
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... This is not the same. That line applies to losing money while gambling, meaning it's your own fault and lack of skill + luck. This is more like "don't gamble if you can't afford to have your winnings stolen by the government"
"Stolen"?
From what I see, the law was the law. Now of course the law may be completely stupid, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't factor into the risk assessment.
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Actually this is really entertaining. I wonder how far the Pokersite = Bank analogy goes. People probably don't cash out too often usually (or atleast hte sites can probably find how often people do cash out) So these sites would probably want to invest most of the cash rather than hold it with inflation risk / whatever opportunity cost there is of holding that much cash.
tldr Insolvent not illiquid? But there's no "guarantee" so could you end up with a "run" on a poker site?
Ofc I need a lot more in the way of facts to confirm any of this, but this has potential :D
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On April 16 2011 07:46 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:36 Modafinil wrote:On April 16 2011 07:29 travis wrote: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? Oregon
HAHAHA now I know why you act like you hate the government sooo much. Our state government is seriously fucked.
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Hey atleast there's no sales tax :D
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when you have to start buying banks to process questionable transactions you may be crossing the line.
apparently 1 of the companies owned 30% of a bank in Utah, which is how they were able to get the transactions approved.
We will see where this goes, however if you are in the US and play online poker for your living, it may be time to dust of the ole resume
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On April 16 2011 07:48 TrANCE, wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 06:33 relyt wrote:lol is that how you translate how much $200 is for the SC community For the people hateing on the goverment the people that run these site aren't stupid they know the laws and they should also know if the US goverment thinks your trying to defraud them in anyway they'll come down on them like a ton of bricks People don't hate the government for enforcing the laws, they hate them for having shit laws to begin with.Shit laws asin what? Fraud and money laundering laws i don't think the vast majority of tax payers would call " shit laws " If their spending the man power and money to pursue this it's oviously on a massive scale running into millions of dollars
The shit law that he speaks of would be the UIGEA laws, which prohibit transactions between gambling sites and US financial institutions. This law is just a bullshit roadblock that the government placed without particularly sound reasoning.
Then, the poker sites tried to get around this via laundering, which of course is a no-no.
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On April 16 2011 07:52 419 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:46 Mailing wrote:On April 16 2011 07:45 419 wrote:
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... This is not the same. That line applies to losing money while gambling, meaning it's your own fault and lack of skill + luck. This is more like "don't gamble if you can't afford to have your winnings stolen by the government" "Stolen"? From what I see, the law was the law. Now of course the law may be completely stupid, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't factor into the risk assessment.
Considering these closured have less to do with legality of poker, but more with the legality of bank fraud. A lot of people who are innocent are getting screwed over by this.
Sure you can argue that they did this because there was a customer base in the US that wanted to play, but that doesn't mean they should go to illegal means to serve that customer base.
People whould be mad at FT and PS et al. for pursuing illegal action when doing transactions, not the US government for pursuing criminal activity.
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On April 16 2011 07:55 Wrongspeedy wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:46 travis wrote:On April 16 2011 07:36 Modafinil wrote:On April 16 2011 07:29 travis wrote: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? Oregon HAHAHA now I know why you act like you hate the government sooo much. Our state government is seriously fucked.
is it? I wouldn't know -.-
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Yet again hippocracy rules in America. You are not allowed to gamble, it is wrong. They forbid you to gamble on games where you have good odds and can win money, but here try our state sponsored lotteries. Where your chances of winning are 1 in 45,000,000.
In my state, Florida, they got the lottery started by saying all the money would go to education. What they actually did was, for every dollar lottery provides to education funding, they take a dollar out of their budget for education. The end result is the same as if you put the money into their state budget/slush fund.
The government in the U.S. is completely out of control. The federal and state governments are already in debt, they will never be able to pay. But they waste time and money going after crimes that have no victims. Such stupidity. Meanwhile social security will be broke in the next 15 years because the government took the money, promised not to spend it, and then spent it all. Then they spent all the money they predict will come for the next 20 years.
The U.S. government is a shrine to immorality but they want to force everyone to live by their morals. Which only apply when it is convenient for them. I wish I had the money to take my family and leave this backwards ass country forever. I hear Sweden is quite nice.
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You think you can get away without paying taxes for online gambling criminal slaves???
we're the federal government here to illegally impound your moneys
federal government is worse than king george III (read the declaration of independence if you don't know who that is)
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On April 16 2011 07:46 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:36 Modafinil wrote:On April 16 2011 07:29 travis wrote: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? Oregon
Ok, ORS 167.109:
(1) A person engaged in an Internet gambling business may not knowingly accept, in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful gambling using the Internet - (money, whether check/EFT/wire etc or money that came through those means)
ORS 167.117 (24):
"Unlawful" means not specifically authorized by law.
Is Pokerstars/FTP/AB/etc "specifically authorized by law" in Oregon?
Are you "specifically authorized by law" to gamble on the internet?
No. Thus it is "unlawful gambling" for you to play internet poker in Oregon, and it is illegal for the sites to receive your money, even indirectly.
Is "poker" gambling in Oregon? Yes:
ORS 167.117 (7):
"Gambling" means that a person stakes or risks something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance or a future contingent event not under the control or influence of the person, upon an agreement or understanding that the person or someone else will receive something of value in the event of a certain outcome.
Because it is against Oregon state law, it is a violation of the UIGEA.
We could repeat this for every state. But even if UIGEA didn't exist, it'd still be illegal in your state, and sites could still be liable under state law, which is fine for any definition of "illegal".
Time to leave "work", bbl.
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On April 16 2011 07:28 Layden wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2011 07:20 Aus.Force wrote:On April 16 2011 07:18 Kurr wrote:On April 16 2011 07:13 jdseemoreglass wrote:On April 16 2011 07:05 Kurr wrote:
Some people need the government to hold their hands in these type of matters because they have no self control. So we need the government to control us for our own good? This is the philosophy today... thank god I don't have children. Some people do need the government to control them when it comes to gambling. There are enough examples of people losing everything they own to gambling debts that I don't think I need to elaborate. I'm not trying to demonize poker. I play it once in a while, it's fun. But I have self control. If I lose 10$, I'm not going to play again right away. Some people instead play 20$ more when they lose. Just an example, but yes, people are that stupid. same can be said for alcohol, drugs, smoking and so on.... regulation these days is out of hand. there's got to be a point where people are responsible for their own actions. but then again, these are the problems of all western countries. The philosophy you describe is embodied in America by the Liberitarian Party, which sadly isn't represented in any for at any level of the U.S. Government. For those of you unfamiliar with U.S. politics, we have a Social Conservative/Big Government party in the Republicans and a Social Liberal/Big Government party in the Democrats. Strangely the U.S. electorate tends to be divided 50/50 between both parties.
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