[pegs13]

Hey guys,

It has been a year and 6ish? months since the port security bill was passed and I just wanted to know if anyone had some decent answers or links to answers to the following questions.

Why is Neteller banned from US but Epassporte is allowed to operate? IMO Neteller >>>>> Epass

Why is Epass the only company of its kind available to US players? They have to be making a killing with their fee heavy service and the only solution seems to create some sort of competition.

I understand that party poker left the US market because they are a public company but based on what has happened since to those sites that stayed (um nothing am i right?) why haven't they come back? Also what about all the other sites that fled in the months following why haven't they returned ie. Ipoker network, mansion, etc. Wasn't a large portion of their player base US? Do they just hate making money?

[CraftyCal]

i dunno about the 1st question but i'll have a pop at the 2nd. party still rock & have higher traffic than any non US allowing site, they're also my favouite site for support, i once sent 3 e-mails and got 3 replies within the space of an hour, wwoooooww i was impressed. I suppose the only possible reason is that they have a reputation as being a massive site & they may not want to ruin their reputation by competing against stars and full tilt where i reckon they'd probably end up 3rd, IMO i believe they'd rather remain comfortably the No.1 site in europe and they still make plenty of money with this choice.
So to finalize i think party are just wimps, but i love them, lol.

[pegs13]

I fully understand what you are saying but I still don't understand. It's not like if they come back they will lose any business in fact its the opposite they will gain business and imo more business > Less business

[jfiiue4]

i liked paradise poker

[snaggs]

web atm is another US dealing payment company, but there fees make epassporte look generous!!!!
snaggs

[Adam Emperor]

I'll take a crack at this, but understand that I'm by no means a lawyer or really an "expert" in these areas--simply someone who follows the industry closely for obvious reasons.

1) Neteller got in a lot of trouble for participating in transactions that enabled online sports betting, which very clearly violates the Interestate Wire Act. They then made the corporate decision (which they probably had to make) to stop allowing transactions from people in the U.S. Further, what happened to Neteller didn't technically have anything to do with the UIGEA (the component of the Port Security Act that affects our industry). I have no doubt the two are both part of a crackdown by the US on online gaming, but one technically had nothing to do with the other.

2) Epassporte doesn't enable sports betting transactions. From my understanding, they've been to court and won over funding various things on the internet in the past, and they have a pretty firm grasp of what they can and can't do from a legal perspective. My guess is that if Neteller had stuck to poker and not ever funded sites with sportsbooks, they'd still be operating for all of our use as well....though of course I can't say that with certainty.

3) From my understanding, Party (and others) leaving the US didn't have much to do with a fear of getting in trouble; it had to do with the laws that govern being a public company in the jurisdictions in which they exist. For instance, PartyGaming is on the London Stock Exchange. I don't know exactly what the rules are for being on the London Stock Exchange, but if they lost that status, they could possibly lose hundreds of millions (or even billions) of dollars. Someone who knows more about running a public company can chime in....basically, doing anything that is "grey" legally is a real bad idea.

There's actually been a lot of talk of a potential sale of partypoker to a private company at some point, but it hasn't gone through and may not still be in the works. If that happened, it would very likely end up taking US players again, as the US customer base would be a very large percentage of the value of that company. I guess we'll see.

[pegs13]

Thanks Adam. A lot of what you said makes perfect sense and is prob close to reality.

As a player I would love to see a neteller-like company that is directed towards poker players only or at least not involved in sports betting.

I have also heard the rumors of party poker selling to become private, I hope they are true and all the other sites follow suit and return to the US. As much as I love FTP, UB, Bodog and stars for sticking around I think they will only get better with more competition putting pressure on them.

[towman1]

Adam is the nuts

[p0k3rj03]

^^ lol cosign