Future of Online Poker in the USA

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
Engineer what do u feel will honestly happen on July 10th. My personal feel is that poker will be the same july 10th of this year next year and following years just as it is now. I honestly dont think were in for any big surprises

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm glad you asked. Many here think this, for some reason. Of course, last year people said the same thing about online casino and sports betting. They were wrong.

So, why do you think poker will be the same ten years from now? The DOJ is actively chasing down U.S.-facing sports books. They aren't simply waiting for the CEOs to enter America, either. Rather, the DOJ is extraditing these CEOs from foreign, sovereign nations. Once they run out of sports books, you think they'll stop and allow poker? Nah...we're next.

Skallagrim believes U.S.-facing poker sites are breaking federal law; UIGEA prohibits banking for gambling activities that violate state gambling laws, even misdemeanor state laws. Right or wrong, the fact that the DOJ can craft an argument that a federal law is being violated means trouble. Also, despite contrary appellate court rulings, the DOJ believes poker-only sites violate the Wire Act of 1961. So, even without legislation in our favor, we're at risk. We can no longer sit back and stay silent as we have for so long, IMO. With a great offense, we may be right where we are now in ten years. Without, I personally doubt that anything good will happen.

The other risk is future legislation. HR 4411 passed the House by a wide margin. HR 4777, a bill that banned Internet poker, was cosponsored by 1/3 of the House. Without a good offense, it's hard to imagine these zealots not introducing a new bill. While social conservatives have been weakened politically and internally, they're still gung-ho to outlaw our activities. We shouldn't give them the opportunity this time. If they try another law, they should know they'll pay some political price.

Now, I'm not just posting "end of the world" stuff. Rather, we have a plan. Check out Fight for Online Gaming!! -- Plan for weeks of 5/28 & 6/4 . We look forward to your help.

[MyDogBonny]

likely outcome imo,

business as usual illegal or not because it is impossible to regulate internet use from the internet clients.
offshore servers from many countries will not care about the us laws.
manual checks or money orders to fund accounts and get payouts.

pros: you will still be able to play.
cons: 2 week delay for checks to arrive and be processed. some unscrupulous sites will proliferate.

imo only,

good luck!
Steve

[TheEngineer]

[ QUOTE ]
likely outcome imo,

business as usual illegal or not because it is impossible to regulate internet use from the internet clients.
offshore servers from many countries will not care about the us laws.
manual checks or money orders to fund accounts and get payouts.

pros: you will still be able to play.
cons: 2 week delay for checks to arrive and be processed. some unscrupulous sites will proliferate.

imo only,

good luck!
Steve

[/ QUOTE ]

Good comments, Steve. Thanks.

If something like HR 4777 were to pass, given the DOJ's vigilence in this area do you believe big sites like FullTilt will continue to offer poker in the U.S., or do you think we'll be stuck with shady small sites?

I guess the issue with poker is that we need opponents. Sports betting cannot be completely wiped out because the need for opponents isn't there. As a result, sites like WSEX can give the DOJ the one-finger wave and continue with business as usual.

I still think we're best off making a good show of strength in Washington. Our problem in the past was taht we were getting run over in Congress. We were playing a loose passive game, just calling down and getting crushed by our tight aggressive opponents (with the occasional suck-out when legislation didn't pass before that session ended). I think we can benefit by stepping up our aggression a bit. I hope we'll all write and call Congress to demand what's rightfully ours.

Cheers.

[TheEngineer]

BANK TROUBLE FOR POKERSTARS
http://www.casinomeister.com/news/ap...POKERSTARS.php

27 April 2007

"Insufficient funds" is a highly unlikely reason for rubber checks

The most popular - and populous - online poker room around, Poker Stars.com has been the subject of worried forum postings following a series of bounced checks to players, and this week the issue was addressed by the online poker information portal Poker-King.com.

In a report that does not clarify whether the players concerned are US resident or otherwise, but are assumed to be the former the site published the results of its investigation thus:

"After some investigating, we have ascertained that this is a bank-specific issue. Citizen's Bank has been flagging and returning checks that they deem to be tied to online gambling. The reason that they are giving is that there were "insufficient funds", even though this is not the case.

"Citizens Bank is a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which has publicly stated that it would be taking a hard-line stance to online gambling transactions post-UIGEA. If you are a client of Citizens Bank and have tried to cash an online gambling check, then you have likely been a victim of the company's new hard-line stance."

Poker-King correctly points out that Poker Stars is one of the most financially stable online poker sites around today, so this is not a question of financial instability, but of banking interference.

Founded in 1828, Citizens Financial Group started as a small community bank called the High Street Bank in Providence, Rhode Island. Since then it has grown into a major banking enterprise with $161 billion in assets, making it the 8th largest commercial bank holding company in the United States when ranked by deposits. Owned by UK's The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, the US operation has branches in 13 states and offices in more than 40.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is believed to have been subpoenaed by the US government in connection to its arrangement with publicly traded online gambling firms operating out of Europe that accepted business from customers in the States.

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
BANK TROUBLE FOR POKERSTARS
http://www.casinomeister.com/news/ap...POKERSTARS.php

27 April 2007

"Insufficient funds" is a highly unlikely reason for rubber checks

The most popular - and populous - online poker room around, Poker Stars.com has been the subject of worried forum postings following a series of bounced checks to players, and this week the issue was addressed by the online poker information portal Poker-King.com.

In a report that does not clarify whether the players concerned are US resident or otherwise, but are assumed to be the former the site published the results of its investigation thus:

"After some investigating, we have ascertained that this is a bank-specific issue. Citizen's Bank has been flagging and returning checks that they deem to be tied to online gambling. The reason that they are giving is that there were "insufficient funds", even though this is not the case.

"Citizens Bank is a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which has publicly stated that it would be taking a hard-line stance to online gambling transactions post-UIGEA. If you are a client of Citizens Bank and have tried to cash an online gambling check, then you have likely been a victim of the company's new hard-line stance."

Poker-King correctly points out that Poker Stars is one of the most financially stable online poker sites around today, so this is not a question of financial instability, but of banking interference.

Founded in 1828, Citizens Financial Group started as a small community bank called the High Street Bank in Providence, Rhode Island. Since then it has grown into a major banking enterprise with $161 billion in assets, making it the 8th largest commercial bank holding company in the United States when ranked by deposits. Owned by UK's The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, the US operation has branches in 13 states and offices in more than 40.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is believed to have been subpoenaed by the US government in connection to its arrangement with publicly traded online gambling firms operating out of Europe that accepted business from customers in the States.

[/ QUOTE ]

well that explains that. [censored]

[TheEngineer]

I took a look at the HR 4411 (the UIGEA forerunner) voting patterns. It looks like it passed with a coalition of social conservatives (primarily in the South) who hate all gambling plus others concerned simply about unregulated, offshore gaming, held together by Republican Congressional leadership who were beholden to FOF to pay them back for their 2000, 2002, and 2004 support.

I believe we can beat this, especially now that Republicans are no longer leading Congress. I think the way to win this is to work on the non-'social conservative' part of the coalition by using IGREA, the Wexler poker bill, new Congressional leadership, our hard work, and whatever lobbying we have. Demonstrate the fact that we're addressing the concerns listed by FOF types. Expose the fact that they want prohibition or nothing. Expose their lies for all to see. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Write to everyone, but focus mostly on anyone but a Focus on the Family-type social conservative, as non-FOF types will be most susceptible to flipping. Do focus on non-social conservative Republicans politicians and organizations, as the party has developed deep fissures that we should take advantage of. As for FOF-backed candidates who want to legislate your freedoms, a number of them lost in 2006. Let's continue this trend....vote 'em out! [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

In the mean time, make sure to write to Atty. Gen. Gonzales and to Treasury Sec. Paulson. Let's do our best to keep our opponents from getting the "tough UIGEA regs" they're asking for. After all, if they miss now, it's unlikely they can get more federal legislation any day soon, especially with Republicans in the minority.

IGREA sponsor/cosponsor breakdown
Democrats: 21 of 24 sponsor/cosponsors
Republicans: 3 of 24 sponsor/cosponsors

HR 4411, Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act
Republicans: 201 aye (87%), 17 nay (7%), 12 no vote (5%)
Democrats: 115 aye (57%), 76 nay (38%), 10 no vote (5%)

So, while Democrats tend to be less against us than Republicans, the majority still voted against us. We'll have to be vigilant.

States most opposed to HR 4411:

Alaska, Nevada, Massachusetts, Arizona, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Washington, Florida, Virginia, Michigan, and Texas

Note: Our support tends to be around the Northeast and the West Coast. The only Southern states are Texas and Florida. No "deep South" states.

States most in favor of HR 4411:

Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming

Note: Most are Southern, socially conservative areas.

Congressional Black Caucus on HR 4411 (the only group I could find not in support of HR 4411):

Aye: 20/40 (50%), Nay: 20/40 (50%)

Note: Two members, Julia Carson and Mel Watt, are big supporters of our right to play. Another, Emmanual Cleaver, voted for HR 4411 but appears to be coming around on IGREA. Anyone here whose Congressman is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus should definitely be writing a lot, probably focusing on the issues presented by Julia Carson and Emmanual Cleaver (age verification, fairness issue relating to it being "okay" to bet on horses but not on cards, etc).

State by state HR 4411 voting:

Alabama : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Alaska : 0.0% Aye, 100.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Arizona : 50.0% Aye, 50.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Arkansas : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
California : 52.8% Aye, 47.2% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Colorado : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Connecticut : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Delaware : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Florida : 72.0% Aye, 16.0% Nay, 12.0% No vote
Georgia : 92.3% Aye, 7.7% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Hawaii : 50.0% Aye, 50.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Idaho : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Illinois : 66.7% Aye, 22.2% Nay, 11.1% No vote
Indiana : 88.9% Aye, 11.1% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Iowa : 80.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 20.0% No vote
Kansas : 75.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 25.0% No vote
Kentucky : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Louisiana : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Maine : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Maryland : 75.0% Aye, 25.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Massachusetts : 20.0% Aye, 80.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Michigan : 73.3% Aye, 26.7% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Minnesota : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Mississippi : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Missouri : 77.8% Aye, 22.2% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Montana : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Nebraska : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Nevada : 0.0% Aye, 100.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
New Hampshire : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
New Jersey : 66.7% Aye, 25.0% Nay, 8.3% No vote
New Mexico : 66.7% Aye, 33.3% Nay, 0.0% No vote
New York : 51.7% Aye, 37.9% Nay, 10.3% No vote
North Carolina : 84.6% Aye, 7.7% Nay, 7.7% No vote
North Dakota : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Ohio : 77.8% Aye, 16.7% Nay, 5.6% No vote
Oklahoma : 80.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 20.0% No vote
Oregon : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Pennsylvania : 89.5% Aye, 5.3% Nay, 5.3% No vote
Rhode Island : 50.0% Aye, 50.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
South Carolina : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
South Dakota : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Tennessee : 88.9% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 11.1% No vote
Texas : 74.2% Aye, 19.4% Nay, 6.5% No vote
Utah : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Vermont : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Virginia : 72.7% Aye, 9.1% Nay, 18.2% No vote
Washington : 66.7% Aye, 33.3% Nay, 0.0% No vote
West Virginia : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote
Wisconsin : 50.0% Aye, 25.0% Nay, 25.0% No vote
Wyoming : 100.0% Aye, 0.0% Nay, 0.0% No vote

[Robin Foolz]

god bless nevada (i realize this may be construed as an oxymoron [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

[PBJaxx]

TheEngineer. Your diligence continues to impress me. Thank you!

[BluffTHIS!]

I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, and indeed in the past I have been a "glass half-full" guy as to the current situation, which I think will be mostly unchanged post-regs as I believe the regs aren't likely to be enforced effectively enough to stop US players from playing online. However we will have to be willing to jump through more hoops and bear with more delays.

Regarding the future of online poker, I think we need to distinguish between the short term of like the next 5 years, and the longer term after that. In the longer term I am very optimisitic that either options 2a or 2b that Engineer listed above will come to pass. But in the near term, with the political reality that even *if* some favorable legislation passes the house it won't even get a committee hearing in the senate once Kyl and others place a hold on it, then we are unlikely to succeed. Which is why I and others have previously said that our only realistic chance *this year* is getting such legislation passed in the same way as the IUGEA did, by being attached to must pass legislation.

If we don't want to be let down big, we must accept this political reality, while maintaining the determination to keep working to achieve our goals. We need to look at what we are doing now as plowing the political ground and planting the seeds for the future when we hope to reap the fruits of such present and future efforts.

So for now of course we keep working hard on getting something favorable passed this year, but concentrating on acceptable language being fashioned in the house, and then getting same attached in conference committee to must pass legislation, which is something highly difficult. Which is why we must also get some committments from important senators who chair committees, and who have influence with the senate leader, Sen. Reid.

Also for the near term we need to concentrate on neutering the regs as much as possible, as the situation where they aren't effective mostly, just like with alcohol during prohibition, will be a *huge* factor in helping to persuade other politicians to our cause in the future.

As far as neutering those regs, which Engineer has already been urging all of us on with letters to the Treasury etc., we need to work on our allies in Congress to do the following:

1) Use the option Mr. K mentioned in deleting funding for enforcement in the funding bills. Since all funding legislation has to originate in the house, we are in better shape trying something like this as that is where most of our support is.

2) I don't remember the specifics now, but I believe it was Nate in a thread late last year who dug out another option, which is that Congress can refuse to accept the regs, let alone fund them. Obviously we need to encourage this avenue as well.

3) Back the efforts of the banks to water down the regs by writing our politicians to back such measures as being a giant unfunded mandate that will hurt banking in our states. Though we shouldn't lie, we can buy a nominal number of shares in some bank corps so that we can say we are stockholders concerned about the effects the regs will have on the corporations' profits.

4) Keep playing and supporting the sites in the US market even when as likely, they occasionally experience hiccups in cashout times and vehicles, as a result of being forced to constantly adapt. *And* spread the word to casual players that you can still get your money online and off again, albeit with delays that weren't happening before. Again this is to keep the regs from being effective which further aids our efforts to get legislation passed sometime in the future, even if not this year.


As far as things like the WTO, the lawsuit against the IUGEA and such, those are more longshots that we can't as easily influence. However they are freerolls, and added to other longshots we are working on, up our EV and make it a little more likely that *some* longshot or other will come in sometime.

If we don't have both this long term focus, and a short term focus that puts equal weight on neutering the regs as much as possible, then I am afraid that many here will be in for a big letdown by the end of the year. We just need to work on plowing the ground, planting the seeds and realize it takes a while to reap the fruits of current efforts.

[TheEngineer]

Well said, Bluffthis.

This is long-term effort. In fact, I'm more pessimistic than you about the possibility of passing legislation this year, but that really shouldn't be our short-term goal (we'd take it, of course, but we really shouldn't expect it). Our goals for this year and next are as you stated (regs, etc), plus building our grassroots effort. While we may not get legislation passed soon, we're already seeing the fruits of our labor, as there is no pending legislation making things worse. So, our efforts are preserving the status quo, which is a victory in itself.

I hope no one here will feel a sense of let down if we don't pass IGREA this year. Rather, I hope we'll feel a sense of accomplishment in not allowing our opponents to run us over. As FOF said, "the fight is on". I'm proud to be part of a group that's not afraid to fight back.