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Earlier there was a thread concerning some company that was formed with the intent of circumventing the potential effects of the UIGEA (or current effects in the case of Party and others) -- apparently you would buy "stock" and they would open an account for you to play on a site, something to that effect.

Anywho, I wanted to follow up on this a bit more but the thread has vanished. The last reply to the thread was from a mod (Sniper I think?) who said there was another thread concerning this and suggested this thread be moved to "MOD"? Not sure if I'm remembering this right, but what is the "MOD" forum? I checked the Mod playground but that seems to be mainly concerned with scenarios such as if Bruce Lee could take Drago in his prime if he was real, etc. Could some1 point me in the direction of either of these threads?

Also out of curiosity, why is Legislation not an acceptable forum to discuss this in? I believe that one of the posters in the thread was trying to examine whether or not the UIGEA applied in the case of "employees" of this company.

Edited to add: I did try using the search. I think the title of the thread was something like "The 'workaround' has arrived"

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The MOD DISCUSSION forum is a private forum only the mods can see and post in. The only reason I can think of for that thread getting moved there would be to discuss whether the OP was spamming or not.

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I thought this was odd as well. It seems like this could have led to an interesting discussion.

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I moved it, will advise as soon as I can and as much as I can.

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I moved it, will advise as soon as I can and as much as I can.

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Ok, thanks for the reply. Also thanks BT for clearing up the MOD forum question.

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The reason the original thread and the recent thread were moved, is because the "offer" as it is currently designed... is ILLEGAL [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

You can't simply solicit "investors" of unregistered shares.

Also, at the moment, all it really is, is an affiliate spam link.

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They are discussing it in detail on other forums around the internet. Lots of legal people say it IS completely legal and it will work. There is also going to be a large article about it in Bluff magazine if Feb, and also apparently in Cardplayer. I gues 2+2 doesn't want to us to discuss this, but you can find out lots of info about this and OTHER workarounds if you search the other poker forums.

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[ QUOTE ]
They are discussing it in detail on other forums around the internet. Lots of legal people say it IS completely legal and it will work. There is also going to be a large article about it in Bluff magazine if Feb, and also apparently in Cardplayer. I gues 2+2 doesn't want to us to discuss this, but you can find out lots of info about this and OTHER workarounds if you search the other poker forums.

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So they sort of give you a Corporate Identity by buying shares in the Company.?. The Corporation is offshore so it's not really you who's playing but your offshore Corporate Identity.?. Sounds like it might work.

PairTheBoard

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Disclaimer: I am a lawyer and have done some research, but this is not my area of expertise, this isn't legal advice, blah blah blah

[ QUOTE ]
They are discussing it in detail on other forums around the internet. Lots of legal people say it IS completely legal and it will work. There is also going to be a large article about it in Bluff magazine if Feb, and also apparently in Cardplayer. I gues 2+2 doesn't want to us to discuss this, but you can find out lots of info about this and OTHER workarounds if you search the other poker forums.

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This is a "workaround" in the same way that tax fraud is working around paying taxes.

There are two scenarios: one where it is legal for you to play poker, and one where it's not (in your state.)

If 1)your state makes it illegal, becoming part of a corporation will not only not save you, it will expose the corp to criminal liability with lots of civil penalties, because the corp is knowingly facilitating an illegal activity by employing you to commit a felony/misdemeanor/whatever the crime is in your state. So, right off the bat, if the corp takes people from the state of Washington etc., everyone holding shares in it is screwed* (at the very least a good chunk of what you put in will go to defense lawyers, and this is not a particularly winnable case IMO.) edit: If the corp is offshore and refuses to defend itself, any of its assets coming into the States will be seized to pay the fines, and any corporate directors will never be able to set foot here again.

In Scenario 2, the corp only sells shares to people in states where online gambling is not criminalized. OK, great, this bypasses the criminal liability part. But federal law already allows you to gamble online, it just doesn't let sites take your bets. So what's the point?

edit:

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So they sort of give you a Corporate Identity by buying shares in the Company.?. The Corporation is offshore so it's not really you who's playing but your offshore Corporate Identity.?. Sounds like it might work.

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No, it won't. If I incorporate as Drugs, Inc. and hire two guys to sell crack on the nearest street corner (setting aside for the moment whether you can even legally incorporate for the purpose of committing illegal activity - you can't), the fact that Drugs, Inc. is holding the money does not save the people selling the crack. Criminal law simply does not work that way.

*edit edit: nobody butt in with "but there's no shareholder liability" please, because this is one of the exceptions where there obviously is.

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adanthar,

The whole point of this company's plan isn't to shield a player from criminal liability, but rather a publicly held corporation. The want to try to provide a way for party et al to again allow american players on their site, without exposing such sites to legal liabilities vis a vis the US gov't. Of course it would apply (if it works and flies and is trustworthy) to privately held companies as well.

This is all apart from the issue of stock solicitation mentioned earlier.