More legal questions about online gaming

[Shoe]

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It occured to me that the US government could deliver the final blow by making it impossible for people to cashout.

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hasn't it always been that the majority of people never cashout.

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even my fishy friends withdraw sometimes

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And even the fish want to know that they will be able to withdraw when they "hit it big"

[falcone falcone]

Can anyone just open an account in the UK? Or are you suggesting actually moving there?

[NoahSD]

I've heard that having a foreign bank account gives you like a 70% chance of being audited. Is that true, and if so, how bad is being audited if you do your best to keep good records?

[D.L.M.]

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I've heard that having a foreign bank account gives you like a 70% chance of being audited. Is that true, and if so, how bad is being audited if you do your best to keep good records?

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it is 73% you dummy

[BluffTHIS!]

KKF,

If you want to read the leg forum thread, how long before PS UB and FT drop? , you can see a detailed discussion on whether the gov't will or won't be likely to stop casual US players from playing post-regs. Near the end it is a debate between Billman who postulates the total worst case scenario, and myself who doesn't believe that will happen for the reasons I gave. He eventually stopped responding after I showed him to be a dishonest debater who believes he can make predictions and then it be on a doubter to prove those not true, rather than on himself to prove his assertions.

In summary, we will just have to wait until the regs are out to see how wide the scope of same is, and how effective they are likely to be.

As to stars, they along with other sites currently remaining in the US market are taking a contrary legal interpretation of the UIGEA to that of the DoJ, and thus are taking a measure of risk. Of course they are doing so in the expectation of getting a compensating reward in profits. If they judge that the regs will be largely effective in preventing fund transfers, then they will be more likely to exit the US market as the smaller likely reward won't be worth the risk.

The sites to watch though are the ones tied to sports books. Since sportsbetting has always been much more clearly illegal under the Wire Act even prior to the UIGEA, they have nothing further to risk. It will be those sites, along with stars if they stay, who will be the leaders in figuring out ways around the regs.

Even if the regs mandate, contrary to the wishes of small banks, the expensive step of blacklisting certain foreign accounts, that can be *easily* gotten around by the sites by using private banks that also do a majority of their business in non-gambling areas, to simply create a new account for them each month on which to draft checks, thus defeating a slowly updated blacklist. Plus as mentioned in that thread, there are great difficulties that could come about internationally if the US were to try as well to block certain SWIFT transactions.

As to Neteller, like El D said, they are a viable business without US customers and thus should stay around for foreign customers, or foreign based US citizens like yourselves with foreign bank accounts. A primary reason for their temporary liquidity problems has not to do with US gov't seizures of funds, but with their not expecting a "run on the bank" and having a lot of funds invested in short term securities which aren't able to be got at on the spur of the moment.

As for your foreign banking options, probably the Caymans, UK and Canada in that order.

Of course the worrisome thing about all of this is Joe Fish being either stopped or disuaded from playing. Professional players in the US can find ways around it, and these have been discussed in other threads (foreign bank account + VPN server).

Regarding foriegn regulation/prohibition of online poker, you need to follow threads in the leg forum on this, as there are developments in many countries. Right now the UK looks like the friendliest, although a recent EU court decision *seems* to rebut attempts in some EU countries to regulate in a monopolistic fashion where their citizens can't play with companies based in other EU jurisdictions. That is a complicated issue though, just like the long shot issue of the WTO ruling that will being going against the US when it is published (longshot that the US will actually care enough to change its legislation to conform).

Also, it is wise to keep in mind, including regarding many positions expressed in the leg forum, that there are many competing interests in the online gaming industry. Party Poker in particular, has lost the most with the IUGEA, and has the most to gain in promoting the most gloomy interpretation of the UIGEA and its likely effectiveness or not, so as to try to lump their privately held competitors into their situation. They absolutely hate that stars and others are remaining in the US market which allows those sites to use profits from there to more effectively compete with Party in other markets.