Why are sites still *up in the air*?

[LotsOfOuts69]

It seems to me a site like Pokerstars, who have said they have not made any decisions either way on the new legislation, need to make a decision soon.

The Bill might get signed into law tommorrow, from that exact point, Pokerstars would be breaking U.S. law, no?

Anyone know how this process actually works? I mean, if they signed a law tommorrow that said something like running a porn shop is illegal, and I ran a porn shop, how long would I have to shut down? I can't just shut my store down in 1 day (people need to return rented videos), what if I didn't even hear about the law (as most people may have not with this one). Bad example, but you know what I mean.

If pokerstars is breaking the law tommorrow by not making a decision to close U.S. accounts, isn't the damage already done?

Any thoughts would be appriciated.

[augie_]

They are still "up in the air" because the longer Americans play on their site, the more money they make. Gotta rape the Americans for those last precious days...

[ericicecream]

Pokerstars is not under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government.

[dlk9s]

Or...

...maybe they are still "up in the air" because they don't want to make any rash decisions before thinking things all the way through. You know, responsible corporate leadership and what-not.

[Chrysiptera]

[ QUOTE ]
They are still "up in the air" because the longer Americans play on their site, the more money they make. Gotta rape the Americans for those last precious days...

[/ QUOTE ]
I tend to agree... I think many of the sites that haven't said anything are planning on closing US business, but just haven't said so.

I'm not implying that PokerStars is going to do that, but I would be very surprised if there are some sites that do have that plan of action.

Chry

[LotsOfOuts69]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
They are still "up in the air" because the longer Americans play on their site, the more money they make. Gotta rape the Americans for those last precious days...

[/ QUOTE ]
I tend to agree... I think many of the sites that haven't said anything are planning on closing US business, but just haven't said so.

I'm not implying that PokerStars is going to do that, but I would be very surprised if there are some sites that do have that plan of action.

Chry

[/ QUOTE ]

That brings me back to the question of, if they are going to close business, they have to do so now. Once the law is in place, they will be breaking the law. It takes some time to weed out all the account, it cant happen instantaneously. Bush can sign this law tommorrow at noon, Pokerstars will no be able to close down all U.S. account tommorrow.

Once they break the law, what does it matter?

[jb9]

[ QUOTE ]
That brings me back to the question of, if they are going to close business, they have to do so now. Once the law is in place, they will be breaking the law.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think the law works quite the way you are implying it does (I believe it restricts money transfers between US institutions and gambling sites -- not the operation of gambling sites).

In any event, any poker site that wanted to shut down instantly can just shut down their servers or all real money games or whatever.

From Stars perspective, there may be several very good reasons for not making a decision just yet. I'm sure they are considering options (and may have already made a decision to how they will react under different scenarios), but they won't make their plans public until they enact them as there is exactly zero benefit to them to do so (other than relieving their customers of confusion, but the stakes are a little higher than temporary customer dissatisfaction right now).

[ncboiler]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems to me a site like Pokerstars, who have said they have not made any decisions either way on the new legislation, need to make a decision soon.

The Bill might get signed into law tommorrow, from that exact point, Pokerstars would be breaking U.S. law, no?

Anyone know how this process actually works? I mean, if they signed a law tommorrow that said something like running a porn shop is illegal, and I ran a porn shop, how long would I have to shut down? I can't just shut my store down in 1 day (people need to return rented videos), what if I didn't even hear about the law (as most people may have not with this one). Bad example, but you know what I mean.

If pokerstars is breaking the law tommorrow by not making a decision to close U.S. accounts, isn't the damage already done?

Any thoughts would be appriciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not a simple decision. There are A LOT of things to consider.

[Nate tha\\\' Great]

IMO, the question is just the opposite: how did PartyGaming make its decision so fast?

Party's Board of Directors were literally awoken out of bed by this news on Saturday AM, British time. They then had to convene their council, with the apparent goal of having an announcement ready for the London Stock Exchange by the very early Monday AM. For all intents and purposes, that means that the decision probably had to be made by mid-evening on Sunday, and rumors were circulating all over the net that it had been. Keep in mind that the terms of the legislation were not even known until just hours before the bill passed, and wound up containing significant differecnes from the version that had passed through the House.

In other words, Party gave itself at most 36 hours to make a decision, and probably closer to 24 hours, under conditions of tremendous personal and professional stress. And the stakes couldn't have been higher -- the upwards of $4 billion dollars it had in market value. While shutting down is understandable, failing to so much as "sleep on it" is not.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

good points Nate, but it didn't take 888, Crypto, or Boss media much longer to make theirs. They must have had an inkling what was in the bill. I mean, there were grass roots movements on 2+2 to "call your senator" at the beginning of last week...I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume these companies had a good idea of what was going tp happen before Saturday Am.