Brainstorming: Ways Around the Internet Ban

[Cooder]

Let’s brainstorm about how the Internet gambling ban can be circumvented.

Rules for brainstorming:

1) Post any idea: brilliant, silly, a joke, stupid. It might give a good idea to someone else.

2) No criticism allowed of posts – it might prevent somebody with a good idea from posting.

I’ll go first.

Launder the money. Somebody outside the US starts a business. You transfer money to them from your favorite online gambling site; they write you a check or transfer the money.

Or, use Neteller to buy stuff, gift certificates etc at online merchants outside the US. Give the stuff as presents. Sell it on EBay.

Neteller is a publicly traded company. They could allow purchase of their shares with the money. You cash out to your bank.


Your turn.

[jrbick]

Bro is this thread meant to be serious? If yes, you need to do some reading.

jrbick

[Cooder]

[ QUOTE ]
Bro is this thread meant to be serious? If yes, you need to do some reading.

jrbick

[/ QUOTE ]

See rule #2

[Clownfish]

This may seem stupid but, wouldn't the ban not cover games of skill? I thought there was something on the books in CA that has poker noted as a game of skill.

[MicroBob]

California's laws do not apply to the rest of the U.S.

The legislation specifically mentions games where chance is a factor in the outcome...or something like that. So this would easily include poker.


You do raise a different point however:

There is other language in there about not superceding other states' laws or something like that.
It hasn't been determined if individual states can choose to make online-poker legal if they want to.

So I wonder if there's an outside chance that online-poker (but not sports-betting) could be considered okay to play in California.
But it is already being determined that it is okay to 'play' poker anyway. Just not okay to accept the bets.
So I'm not sure it would make a difference at all.

But the fact that California has already made stipulations for poker as a 'game of skill' and that they should have SOME state's rights on the issue leaves open SOME extremely slim possibilities I believe.

[MS Sunshine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Bro is this thread meant to be serious? If yes, you need to do some reading.

jrbick

[/ QUOTE ]

See rule #2

[/ QUOTE ]

rule #2) No criticism allowed of posts – it might prevent somebody with a good idea from posting.

This is my new signature line.

MS Sunshine

[dxu05]

1) Play nothing but "online tournaments" for "free chips" and set prize pools with a donation fee to play.

2) set only 1 buyin to buy tokens in which we play a competitive arcade game of poker in which you can cash out tickets which win cool prizes, then set up a site where you can redeem cool prize vouchers for certain cash values, and then cash out through through the cool prize redeeming site.

More to come =)

[gregdillon]

Well, this is a shot in the dark, but could it be a loophole that we are NOT really transfering money to a gambling site? I don't put my money into partypoker from my bank. I put it into neteller. Then neteller (A Canadian company [right?]) puts it into partypoker. I'm probobly WAY off, but it's a thought.

[Chomp]

I had this idea last night. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive, as you can see:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...e=1#Post7481173

[Dennisa]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, this is a shot in the dark, but could it be a loophole that we are NOT really transfering money to a gambling site? I don't put my money into partypoker from my bank. I put it into neteller. Then neteller (A Canadian company [right?]) puts it into partypoker. I'm probobly WAY off, but it's a thought.

[/ QUOTE ]

Neteller better start to rethink its business strategy and fee structures.

1. They need to immediately encourge non gambling business to use their processing services. Right now they would hard to emplain they do non gambling transactions. If I was neteller, on Monday I would announce fee free Ebay transactions for the next two months, then have a fee structure that is 33-50% discounted against Paypal's. To keep their gambling business in operation, they need to have a non gambling portfolio and use it as a loss leader.

2. They need to encourage debit card use and eliminate the transaction fees they charge to load cards. They easily could recover this fee income as they would receive a portion of the merchant fees. Even if they loose this small income stream if their players can not transfer back to US accounts they will not be a processing service in the long run.

US Banks will not take the enforcement angle lightly. Right now it be easy to block companies like neteller if they do not diversify their business model very quickly.