What risks to online poker should I consider as a Full-time SnG player

[Fishing2do]

I'm a full-time pro-SnG player. My monthly income depends on poker. Since I'm a SnG player I need high-volume online casinos to play my game for enough $ to make a living.

I'm desperate to know what the risks are of my future business. So I hope somebody here can give me a kind of clear cut explanation of the current situation.

I've quitted playing "pro-poker" when the legislation bill got passed last year in Oktober. In the last year I've been focusing on day-trading/investing, but the revenues are obviously not comparable by any means to poker. So I was semi-forced to pick up poker again a few months back, and DELIGHTED to find out that there's still a high amount of players playing online.

But today I saw this post in the STT forum about "Fight for online poker"... which got me scared as hell. I'm totally not up to date with the current state of the Online Poker threat. I also dont understand what the posts mean. I'm from the Netherlands and its difficult to understand/picture USA law.

I beg anybody who knows more about the risks/legislation of Online Poker (USA as well as Europe/Netherlands) to give me a clear picture of the risk I take with having Online SnG Poker as my Full-time job. As you understand it's rather ehh critical hehe.

*crosses fingers* for a positive answer... I don't want to go back to 'poverty'! /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[TheEngineer]

I'll address America. When UIGEA "passed" (i.e., was sneaked through the Senate, albeit after it sailed through the House), many poker sites abandoned America. The [censored] politicians who advocated it vowed to introduce legislation this year finish what UGIEA started. 2+2 LLC's team of lawyers embarked on month's long project to develop a statement in response. Dark days indeed. Fortunately, a few sites stayed here, determined to prove that the Wire Act does not apply to poker.

We voted Rep. Leach out of office. His party lost power of Congress at the same time, giving us the starting point of a chance. Still, these were dark days. However, even when victory looked impossible, many poker players decided to fight back on general principle.

Since then, things have improved. We have three bills in Congress and a WTO victory. We've had two hearings in Congress, the second of which FINALLY put word out our belief that the Wire Act does not apply to poker. While the DoJ claims it does, we made a good case, and we have an appeals court ruling backing us. ePassporte operates from CA with impunity, and Doyle's Room decided to come back to the U.S. market. Harrah's and MGM recently announced their belief that online poker will be explicitly legal in the U.S. within two years. And, the PPA matured a lot under more effective leadership.

From here, our main challenge right now is to keep from getting snared by UIGEA via overblocking, as banks have no reason to challenge the DoJ's interpretation of the Wire Act. Fortunately, we have allies posting challenges to the draft UIGEA regs. Hopefully 2+2 LLC's crack legal team is crafting their comment right now. Other concerns are new legislation (our strong offensive has been a great defense for us), a judicial upholding of (or a refusal to hear a challenge to) the DoJ's position that the Wire Act applies to Internet poker, or a DoJ offensive on Internet poker.

I have no way of predicting our likelihood of success, but I can tell you it's much higher than it was six months ago, for sure. I've always said we're underdogs in our struggle, but I'm starting to believe we're now better than 50-50. I do know that if can increase our chances by fighting back. We're certainly stronger than other Internet gaming, mainly because they didn't fight back as effectively as we did. So, I encourage everyone to keep fighting back.

Americans should keep on their congressmen. Europeans can write to EU trade officials to demand that they settle their WTO claims against the U.S. with Inernet gaming concessions, rather than with non-gaming service concessions. If we all do our part, I think we have a really good shot at this. If we let up even a little, I think we'll fail. So, let's all do our part! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[TheEngineer]

[Skallagrim]

Only because I have had some very memorable times in the Netherlands, I will answer your otherwise short-cut, "I dont want to look it up" question.

In the US legality of online poker is still a very open question. Either litigation or new legislatios will change this from "who knows" to "this is it." Right now US players, with a little effort, can play online if they want. It may get more difficult for US players to move money in the near future, but little else will change, as a practical matter, until the new legislation or litigation occurs.

In the Netherlands and the EU, there is little question: online poker play is perfectly legal. The EU is in the process of eliminating any left over laws that protect national gambling operations from other EU competition and it is only these laws that could affect online poker play.

Your tax liabilities in the Netherlands are beyond my knowledge - but it is certainly legal to play; even if there is a Dutch law against it, the EU rules trump.

Skallagrim

[Fishing2do]

I thank you both very much for your answer. It's 6AM here right now, and to be honest I've been staying awake just to see if anybody would post on this topic. I think after reading these posts it's "safe" to go to bed lol!!

I will look into the "EU trade officials" matter tomorrow, to see what I can do from my end here in Europe.

Again thanks alot for taking the time to clarify the situation for me and for others wondering about it.

[xSCWx]

TheEng, thank you for your hard work here. You should really put a "See Results" option in your polls though. I keep having to vote on things I am clueless about just to see the results.

[xSCWx]

TheEngineer, if I am understanding correctly your post seems to focus on the likelihood of online poker conditions improving in the near future. How likely is it to get worse?

[RufiloCaptn]

I think it's safe to say the tides are turning in our favor. This is great news to hear. Thank you gentlemen.

[xSCWx]

Is it safe to believe that it will still be possible to make a living playing online poker 40-50 years from now though?

[TheEngineer]

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TheEng, thank you for your hard work here. You should really put a "See Results" option in your polls though. I keep having to vote on things I am clueless about just to see the results.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks. I didn't include the "see results" because I didn't want to bias the results. I'll PM you with where it is now.

[questions]

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Is it safe to believe that it will still be possible to make a living playing online poker 40-50 years from now though?

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I don't think it will be possible even five years from now, because they're currently developing a kind of computer Big Blue to play a perfect poker game, so once that gets out there, it will be Game Over.

[MegaFossil]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is it safe to believe that it will still be possible to make a living playing online poker 40-50 years from now though?

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I don't think it will be possible even five years from now, because they're currently developing a kind of computer Big Blue to play a perfect poker game, so once that gets out there, it will be Game Over.

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LOL, this is not much of a concern at all IMO. Poker is a much different animal than chess.

[flytrap]

The bigger concern here, is why the heck is the OP playing SNGs when cash games are available?

[ericicecream]

[ QUOTE ]
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Is it safe to believe that it will still be possible to make a living playing online poker 40-50 years from now though?

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I don't think it will be possible even five years from now, because they're currently developing a kind of computer Big Blue to play a perfect poker game, so once that gets out there, it will be Game Over.

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LOL, this is not much of a concern at all IMO. Poker is a much different animal than chess.

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I agre for many forms of poker. But I would think most current sng structures could be beaten by a computer, particularly the several lower levels like $50 and below.