Enough Black Friday. It Makes me Sad. How About When it gets made legal. I propose we name that day, Lets say it would be Monday. Sunny Monday. The day Poker came back.

fuck the feds!!! bring poker back! miss the dam grind!!!!!

save us, utah!!

that makes sense. why is this news?

Some of you really need to actually read the UIGEA and the regulations that were put into place by the Federal Reserve regarding the banks. If you had read both in their entirety, and you had an IQ over 75, you would realize that these banks were not breaking the law. Are you so gullible, that you buy into propoganda from the DOJ and the Feds? The DOJ and the Feds are two of the slimiest, lying schemers who ever carried a badge. Do you really think 3 Accredited Law Firms are missing something that you wannabe, spare time, legal scholars seem so sure of yourselves to know?

pokerstars has the highest priced, sharpest legal minds known to man in the whole world, and they were advised that what they were doing was perfectly legal (which it was). When will some of you learn that the DOJ and the FBI have become semi-rogue operations that enforce the will of their political operatives. The FBI has been convicted 1,000s of times of breaking the law and exceeding their authority, and our current Attorney General Eric Holder is a political lackey who still tows the line for former bosses Covington &Burley and the NFL. The Southern District of New York, currently headed by Preet Bharaha (yes, I'm pretty sure that name is spelled wrong) has a long history of being nothing more than political goons. And they are the office that issued the indictments.

Now everyone is clamoring for regulation like a bunch of sheep because the NKVD wannabe's are stealing bank accounts and throwing innocent people in the hooscow. Sure, just pony up $50 million for a license, and make some campaign contributions, and you'll see what regulated, licsenced poker looks like in the USA. A lousy product with rake so high, almost know one can win at a decent rate, W-2G's issued for every tournament win over $600, and lousy customer service. Just like every other regulated gaming where the government has their noses deep in the trough.

PokerStars, Neteller, Pinnacle Sports, were all great companies who innovated world global commerce by creating new, bold, and savvy products. They all rose to the tops of their fields by offering great customer service, and trying new things that went against the grain of the old school. And for once, there was gambling where many of the customers could actually win long term (something that can almost never happen in Govt./Corporate cabal run games).
Sadly, they were so successful, that the DOJ made sure they could not openly serve the US market.

In a free market, the customer comes out as the ultimate winners. We must return to the real free market principles (not the phony ones espoused by republican and democrat progressives), and once and for all get rid of the current DOJ and the current FBI and take back the country to it's rightful masters, the citizenry.

Wow at first I thought that long rant was gonna be a bunch of nonsense but it was a decent read. Idk tho at the end of the day our govt has the power and we will either have to fall in line w w/e form of online poker we get or move out of country. There really are no easy answers when so many parties get involved and want their piece of the pie.

" pokerstars has the highest priced, sharpest legal minds known to man in the world."

LOL

ever hear of WALL STREET

POKERSTARS lead attorneys work 4 a law firm called " I FLEECE'EM " WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT TELL U?

PEACE

VQ

good rant shakhtar...

How is that a good rant? Belittle your opponents opinions while not touching on one thing from the article. This article has NOTHING to do with pokerstars' lawyers. This article has nothing to do with whether or not you think the DOJs actions are justified. This article has to do with the fact that this bank sought legal advice before essentially being bought-out by another bank. And that these banks used intentionally misleading ways to process poker transactions, and that they are now in deep shit because of it. “A PokerStars document from May 2009 acknowledged that they received money from U.S. gamblers through company names that ‘strongly imply the transaction has nothing to do with PokerStars’ and that PokerStars used whatever company names ‘the processor can get approved by the bank.’” GENIUS LAWYERS STARS WAS USING, as you claim. I think it's hilarious that you argue that they were doing "nothing illegal", please tell that to the DOJ. (Not in any way taking the DOJ's side, just showing the flaws in shaktars argument). "Throwing innocent people in the hooscow"? What innocent people? Money laundering and bank fraud are illegal, I'm sorry you're having difficulty with that. And your rant about the "future" of regulated poker is completely unfounded and speculative. You, just like every one of us, have no idea what the face of US poker will look like in the future. "A lousy product with rake so high, almost know one can win at a decent rate, W-2G's issued for every tournament win over $600, and lousy customer service. Just like every other regulated gaming where the government has their noses deep in the trough." Get real. And please elaborate about "every other regulated gaming", I'm interested to know how the gov't has fucked it up so badly. Sure, government departments suck (see DMV), but this is completely new territory. Poker would be taxed, but I'm pretty sure the poker sites themselves would be completely separate entities (doubt we'd be playing on bigchips.gov) You just come off as such a condescending d-bag, while at the same time offering nothing but speculation and generalized thoughts. If I'm missing some glaring facts from the article, please correct me, but from what I have read shaktars points and arguments are completely off-base and irrelevant to what is actually being discussed here, thus making his insults to my fellow p5'ers even douchier than they already were.

FTP IS BACK!

 

Originally Posted by clemsonrich

How is that a good rant? Belittle your opponents opinions while not touching on one thing from the article. This article has NOTHING to do with pokerstars' lawyers. This article has nothing to do with whether or not you think the DOJs actions are justified. This article has to do with the fact that this bank sought legal advice before essentially being bought-out by another bank. And that these banks used intentionally misleading ways to process poker transactions, and that they are now in deep shit because of it. “A PokerStars document from May 2009 acknowledged that they received money from U.S. gamblers through company names that ‘strongly imply the transaction has nothing to do with PokerStars’ and that PokerStars used whatever company names ‘the processor can get approved by the bank.’” GENIUS LAWYERS STARS WAS USING, as you claim. I think it's hilarious that you argue that they were doing "nothing illegal", please tell that to the DOJ. (Not in any way taking the DOJ's side, just showing the flaws in shaktars argument). "Throwing innocent people in the hooscow"? What innocent people? Money laundering and bank fraud are illegal, I'm sorry you're having difficulty with that.

 

And your rant about the "future" of regulated poker is completely unfounded and speculative. You, just like every one of us, have no idea what the face of US poker will look like in the future. "A lousy product with rake so high, almost know one can win at a decent rate, W-2G's issued for every tournament win over $600, and lousy customer service. Just like every other regulated gaming where the government has their noses deep in the trough." Get real. And please elaborate about "every other regulated gaming", I'm interested to know how the gov't has fucked it up so badly.

Sure, government departments suck (see DMV), but this is completely new territory. Poker would be taxed, but I'm pretty sure the poker sites themselves would be completely separate entities (doubt we'd be playing on bigchips.gov) You just come off as such a condescending d-bag, while at the same time offering nothing but speculation and generalized thoughts. If I'm missing some glaring facts from the article, please correct me, but from what I have read shaktars points and arguments are completely off-base and irrelevant to what is actually being discussed here, thus making his insults to my fellow p5'ers even douchier than they already were.

Your pleonastic diatribe has far too many items to respond to with any form of brevity, so lets just tackle 1 of your questions regarding precedent for gaming/government regulatory examples. While this is really a larger issue regarding ALL government regulations and partnerships resulting in inferior products, lets focus on some specific gambling/poker examples past and present.

1. HORSE RACING - One of the world's truly great sports and traditions, horse races in the late 1800's-early 1900's were loaded with on track bookmakers who set their own prices, and patrons bet with the various bookmakers. Since there was open competition between bookmakers at the track, prices ( hold rates, or vig) were kept low, and the customer could shop around to get the very best price on the particular horse he wanted to bet on. Some horse bettors made a very good living betting horses since the margins were low, the customer did well, and many bookmakers did well too. Then the government started to get involved. The tracks went to a pari-mutual system where the odds you received were dictated by the final collected pool of cumulative wagers. The successful players still chose to bet with the on track bookmakers to get a set price, but the govt. made that illegal. At first, the govt. took only a small piece of the pari-mutual pools, but as their lust and greed grew, so did the thirst by state, and local governments on the action.
Long example short, state governments now dictate through law minimum takeout rates the tracks must charge, and since government takes quite a bit of the proceeds, every track in North America has takeout rates ranging from 16-30% on every available wager. (How would you like to have 15-30% added to your poker tournament buy-ins that don't go in the tournament pool?). So with ridiculous hold rates, 97% of horseplayers lose money, so with almost no sharp action, the player pool is slowly eroded away and the sport has been on life support for years.(not to mention, any payoff of 299-1 is issued a WG-2 on site). In many states, the tracks are only kept running by subsidies and by government mandated payments from slot machines and casinos who must give the money-losing tracks money to operate legally (through liscencing) their games. This is because the industry still has a powerful lobbying arm, and is specifically exempted in the UIGEA. They, along with the NFL have been driving factors in prosecuting on-line gambling in the USA.

1a. New York OTB - You said you wanted a specific example of goverment run gambling that's a disaster? Just look at NY OTB, one of the biggest fiasco's of recent times. Between union contracts for workers, and management looting, OTB did the almost unthinkable by losing millions and millions by booking horse wagers. And the customer? He/She had to pay an additional 7% off of what the track paid on a wager (which was already gouged 16-30%). They squashed competition by making it the only legal option off-track to wager. They recently closed after 38 years of monopolized theft and incompetence.

2. LOTTERIES -In the early years of the 1900's, various neighborhoods had the daily numbers or "policy" games. Some ran them straight, and others were crooked, but the vig was high since being illegal meant that for the most part, only organized crime ran the games, and competition was squashed since any other operator coming into a neighborhood was shot and killed. The 999-1 math prop paid a paltry 599-1 in most places. Then competition came in that they couldn't shoot, the State Government. They took over the rackets, justified their existence by fooling people into all the "community benefits" that the education funding will provide, and even further raped the players by paying them 499-1 (a whopping 50% hold). Not only do they rob the players, they charge them additional taxes for every significant win. If open markets were allowed, you would see daily numbers paying 900-1 or +, which means at least the little guy desperately trying to make a score would at least get a semi-reasonable payout when he wins.

3. ONLINE POKER- All one has to do is look at constricted regulated countries like France, and proposed liscencing rates of Germany and Greece to see how bad poker can be when regulated. The PokerStars players in France lost all their rights to play against the rest of the world, and the rake they pay is very high. This might get higher as it is rumored France wants to even raise their rates . Germany proposed a tax rate of 17% to allow gambling sites to run there legally ( the sites said no thanks), and just this week, Greece is trying to fast track legal on-line gambling to help with their collapsed economy. What was Greece's proposed rates? A 30% tax on Gross Profits for operators, and a 10% tax on all winnings for players. Now between the rake one must pay to cover a 30% tax to the company, and an additional 10% one must pay the state every time he wins, how many people do you think will be able to make a living playing licensed, regulated poker in Greece.?

I could give many more examples but this is already too long. In summary, one must realize that government regulation and licensing is nothing more than a way to help monopolize an industry by squashing competition so that only a select few large companies, or the govt. itself, can maximize profits by taking as much money from something as possible and forcing people to use them. This is not only regarding gambling, but all businesses. All one has to do is see the recent "war" on small, organic food stores by the FDA to see another non-gambling related example. Nothing more shameful than watching video of a Federal SWAT team, armed with machine-guns, raiding a small organic store that has the "gall" to offer customers natural, non-pasturized milk.