how long before PS UB and FT drop?

[Billman]

I, of course, disagree with your interpretation of events but stick by my conditions because I'm not interested in playing into your drama.

You don't actually know anything about SWIFT. You've regurgitated what Vinyard (who I would love to continue to discuss this with) has posted and wrapped it in a confrontational tone. Even if we were to continue to discuss this topic you really have no knowledge to share on this particular subject. So what's the point? Am I going to convince you of anything? No. Are you going to educate me on something I might not know? Highly improbable. We'll just continue to go round and round generating no value to anyone except our egos.

[BluffTHIS!]

8 year old Billman on playground: "if you won't play by my rules where I start from 1st base without batting, I'm gonna take my ball and bats and go home".

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
Sniper,

Well, I think it would be difficult to walk you through specifics because then I'm predicting the future rather than making assumptions based on trends. In other words, even though the DJIA has been on an upward trend since it's inception and I might offer that it's more likely than not that the DJIA will be much higher 20 years from now than it is today, I can't tell you what IBM's stock price will be 20 years from now.

Also, I think that while you're technically correct in what you say that your conclusions may not be correct. The non-US players they have are still with them because they still provide sufficient liquidity. We're only about a month out from the Neteller fiasco and I don't believe we've seen the full shakeout. The major non US poker sites all went up by about 20% while the major US poker sites decreased 20%. My hypothesis here would be that those were Europeans and Canadians jumping ship.

Right now the US facing websites seem to be in a struggle to bottom out from the Neteller mess. As soon as it seems like their numbers are on the rise they'll have a few days that test the lows again. Meanwhile all the major non-US sites are on an upward trend. What happens in 6 months when Party is #1, Stars #2, and Everest and Ongame are #3 with Full Tilt trailing in 4th or 5th spot?

Will non-US players remain loyal? Will they chase liquidity like people did in Oct when Party shut its doors? Will US Full Tilt and UB players flee to Stars as the last remaining site to offer US players sufficient liquidity?

I don't know exactly how those scenarios will play out. I have my thoughts about which companies are better or worse prepared to deal with a constant weakening of the US market but that's another thread on another day :-)

[/ QUOTE ]

Bill, I'm not sure that "the masses" are chasing liquidity, in the way that you describe.

Sciolist predicted pretty early that the bottom half of the list, would dry up due to liquidity... to the extent he predicted, that hasn't happened yet.

I believe the top US facing sites still have a strong enough core of non-US business to withstand most anything tossed their way (barring a marine raid on PokerStars headquarters/datacenter or something).

Take a look at how Absolute has weathered this storm... and they have not only dealt with UIGEA & Neteller, but also a significant change in their own business model.

Bodog, has had the roughest time of it, but their peak traffic is still holding up compared to pre-UIGEA...

fwiw, imo, comparatives to the week before Neteller lockdown, are not that useful, because of a post-Holiday seasonal peaking trend. It is unfortunate that we don't have numbers from early last year...

[Kneel B4 Zod]

[ QUOTE ]
I believe the top US facing sites still have a strong enough core of non-US business to withstand most anything tossed their way (barring a marine raid on PokerStars headquarters/datacenter or something).

[/ QUOTE ]

Full Tilt and UB would barely survive without the US. Stars would be just fine. It appears that a site can go on just fine with 2,000 peak players. What remains to be seen if for long - fish will go broke, money will need to be deposited, ie growth is unnecessary. it's not sufficient in any business to remain stagnant.

Sniper -what biz model did Absolute change?

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I believe the top US facing sites still have a strong enough core of non-US business to withstand most anything tossed their way (barring a marine raid on PokerStars headquarters/datacenter or something).

[/ QUOTE ]

Full Tilt and UB would barely survive without the US. Stars would be just fine. It appears that a site can go on just fine with 2,000 peak players. What remains to be seen if for long - fish will go broke, money will need to be deposited, ie growth is unnecessary. it's not sufficient in any business to remain stagnant.

Sniper -what biz model did Absolute change?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not convinced that FT/UB would go under without the US... on what basis do you make this statement? (convince me that you know something that I haven't thought about)

As for Absolute's business model changes, you can find links to the discussion in the big Site Tracking thread, just scroll back a bit. Basically, they changed their bonus clearing methodology, and their MGR calculations for US players.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I believe the top US facing sites still have a strong enough core of non-US business to withstand most anything tossed their way (barring a marine raid on PokerStars headquarters/datacenter or something).

[/ QUOTE ]

Full Tilt and UB would barely survive without the US. Stars would be just fine. It appears that a site can go on just fine with 2,000 peak players. What remains to be seen if for long - fish will go broke, money will need to be deposited, ie growth is unnecessary. it's not sufficient in any business to remain stagnant.

Sniper -what biz model did Absolute change?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not convinced that FT/UB would go under without the US... on what basis do you make this statement? (convince me that you know something that I haven't thought about)

As for Absolute's business model changes, you can find links to the discussion in the big Site Tracking thread, just scroll back a bit. Basically, they changed their bonus clearing methodology, and their MGR calculations for US players.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I would put the "sites that might be in trouble without the US" bar right below FTP, rather than right above it.

[dstang21]

Hey everyone. I've never got into the poker forums in the past, and as you can see this is my first post. I have read many poker books and played millons of hands (which is why I never bother in these forums - always playing/ if no internet - reading), and I have known about the forums, but haven't had a real need for support and community until now.

I have spent the last 3 hours reading through this whole thread, so hopefully my comments will be fresh inducing some good thoughts/advice.

So much time has come upon my hands due to the Doyle'sroom/ Tribeca trajedy. From what I hear the whole site- which claims to have hundreds of individual skins - is banning all U.S. IPs. Also, a little off-topic, in "Online Poker" by Doyle Brunson (a waste of money if you know anything about the internet and poker) quotes, Brunson writes "While I don't have any ownership (in Doylesroom.com/net), I'm glad they're putting my name on it - because they're paying me a handsome endorsement fee, and because it's a site that makes me proud of my association." Anyway, these two things make me believe that this is just another site fading away. The whole Tribeca network would peak at 11,000 during peak UK time, so I don't see how Doyle'sroom would have many members American or not. I'm not saying it wasn't affected by the legislation, just that it is no more prominent than others.

I won't claim to know anything about politics, and I'm going to ramble, so take that as a disclaimer before trying to burn non poker topics. I started out at BetOnSports poker. I can't remember when they dropped out, but I think it was because they were primarily a sports betting site, and it was also around the time the legislation was passed, or the clouds were forming. My account had been totally withdrawn a month before that, so not being affected, when the urge to play arised again I found Doyle's Room on the same Tribeca Network. (Betonsports started out on its own with approx 3,000 total players, a few hundred active on a given night.... it used to be a gold mine with sports gamblers blowing wads on a fun game they were horrible at - I miss that site) So now Doyle's room pops out this announcement, and I have a minor sum of money that wouldn't affect me if I never received it. I jump the stakes 1000%, why not? Soon I've increased my roll 10 fold. I cash out and am waiting on the fedex express check to come. I left a little bit in there, lost it. Played with a big chunk of my Action Points, and won a freeroll. 350 or so. I've increased this amount also, which I sent to Full Tilt in a promotional offer only available to Doyle's room members.

Sorry - long paragraph. But now after 3 days of emails and messages with managers, I'm a little worried. I've had chats with managers on Doyle's and the responses I got went from "It takes 72 hours to process the check" after 2 days, to "We are hoping to have that ready by the end of the day, if not it will be Monday" today. That was on the cashout. On the trasnfer to Full Tilt, it has been two straight days of "It should go through at the end of the day." They have also just said that they have an abundance of cashouts and things are slow. IMO what could take so long to process a cashout? Emails to Full Tilt have been well written, and otherwise informative, but useless, saying that the transfer part is all on Doyle's room's hands.

So that's what I know, and a bit of an introduction, but my bottom line questions to anyone here...

1) I've read one line about people not being able to cash out at Full Tilt.... are they running well on all cyclinders for the short-term-time being?

2) Should I be worrying that Doyle's room won't be able to process all cashouts in a reasonable fashion or at all?

More info - my last check from Doyle's came FedEx, within 4 or so days, and through a bank on Montreal. My bank on the other hand took like 3 weeks to pass it.

3) Should I worry about cashing that kind of check at a U.S. bank?

Thanks and hope I haven't wasted anyone's time.

[BluffTHIS!]

Nate,

I would agree with your placement of that bar. That is why I find it somewhat surprising that Absolute seems to see some benefit in not merging the ABS & UB player bases on a common platform in order to boost their place in scout's rankings. At this juncture, the bigger a site is perceived to be, then the more already skittish players will trust them to be around for the long haul and give them business now which helps recruit even more players. With non-US players now having issues with Neteller checks, this is even more the case as the euros and canadians are also worried.

[Sniper]

dstang, fwiw, your question would be better placed in one of the Doyle's threads in the zoo (the Internet Gambling forum)...

However, bottom line, the Doyle's email basically told everyone to be prepared for longer delays in processing payouts.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
Nate,

I would agree with your placement of that bar. That is why I find it somewhat surprising that Absolute seems to see some benefit in not merging the ABS & UB player bases on a common platform in order to boost their place in scout's rankings. At this juncture, the bigger a site is perceived to be, then the more already skittish players will trust them to be around for the long haul and give them business now which helps recruit even more players. With non-US players now having issues with Neteller checks, this is even more the case as the euros and canadians are also worried.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bluff,

First, we know it takes some time to merge rooms, in any case.


Now a little speculation, based on some of the rumors that have surfaced...

There was some prior discussion, that they were trying to keep things quiet for the "uninformed masses" that have no clue anything is going on (yes, they exist). SO, they were trying to determine how they could merge the two backend systems, while keeping the 2 seperate front end clients. This obviously is more complicated than just kicking everyone off one room and selecting one front end software system. This option would take longer, and require extensive testing.


Finally, a little thoughtful analysis...

One advantage to remaining seperate, is that should there be some kind of cataclysmic event that takes out one of the rooms (like the marines landing), at least they still have a revenue stream from the other.