how long before PS UB and FT drop?

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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I believe the top US facing sites still have a strong enough core of non-US business to withstand most anything tossed their way (barring a marine raid on PokerStars headquarters/datacenter or something).

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Full Tilt and UB would barely survive without the US. Stars would be just fine. It appears that a site can go on just fine with 2,000 peak players. What remains to be seen if for long - fish will go broke, money will need to be deposited, ie growth is unnecessary. it's not sufficient in any business to remain stagnant.

Sniper -what biz model did Absolute change?

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I'm not convinced that FT/UB would go under without the US... on what basis do you make this statement? (convince me that you know something that I haven't thought about)

As for Absolute's business model changes, you can find links to the discussion in the big Site Tracking thread, just scroll back a bit. Basically, they changed their bonus clearing methodology, and their MGR calculations for US players.

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Personally, I would put the "sites that might be in trouble without the US" bar right below FTP, rather than right above it.

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yes of course I agree. but, many sites below FTP have already stopped taking US players. this is part of the reason why they are below FTP now - sites like Pacific, Paradise, Crpyto, and Ongame might be in the same ballpark (now) as FTP had they not already backed out.

[BluffTHIS!]

All,

I hope that anyone who has read this entire thread, as well as others that are similar, now recognizes the following about Billman and his arguments:

1) He insists that you accept his unproven and unlikely worse case predictions about what the gov't *might do*, but refuses to accept that is is on him to prove those assumptions, instead of on those who doubt them to disprove them, thus showing himself to be a dishonest debater.

2) After having given a speculative and unproven assumption that the gov't will stop paper checks, he then refuses to acknowledge the following:

-a) the UIGEA provides that banks can be given an exemption from having to check each and every individual transaction if it is too difficult or expensive, as it likely is for small banks who have lobbied against this requirement (and note we are talking about checking 60+ *billion* transactions a year).

-b) that even if the banks are required to check all such transactions against a blacklist, which is sure to be slowly updated, the sites can *easily* defeat that with a countermeasure of getting their private banks to given them new account numbers each month.


3) He refuses to acknowledge that we are in a state of transition in funding mechanisms, and in a short term time frame before the regs are published. In six months we will know how we, and the ability of Joe Fish to play, stands for sure, thus making it unecessary to engage in all this dire prediction stuff right now.

4) He now is referring to all e-wallets as "dodgy" and implying Joe Fish won't use existing or new ones. This ignores the fact that Neteller is only cosidered "dodgy" now because of US gov't action against them, and that to a large degree Neteller was only so at risk because they are a publicly held corporation. If Joe Fish didn't mind using Neteller 5 years ago when they were still a private entity, he won't mind using their replacements now. This is primarily because Joe Fish, unlike many high stakes pros, doesn't have a need to keep large sums of money on the net to move around between sites, and thus can't be risking much.

5) Most of all, Billman insists on speculating, without proof, that the gov't will not only implement the worst measures, but also be totally effective in same, without considering countermeaures that the sites and e-wallets might take to defeat the measures of the gov't.



The bottom line is just keep playing and wait 6 months to see what happens. There isn't anything else that can be done, and speculation doesn't serve much purpose. Except that is, for Billman to use a speculative worst case scenario to try to scare posters here into not questioning the PPA about its shortcomings.

[MiltonFriedman]

Absolute over/under changes to April 30. No, I am not going to say why, lines can move for any of a number of reasons.

[mungpo]

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Absolute over/under changes to April 30. No, I am not going to say why, lines can move for any of a number of reasons.

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Seems like you just pulled this out of your ass.

[MiltonFriedman]

Appearances can be deceiving. Care to make a wager ?

[Uglyowl]

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Absolute over/under changes to April 30. No, I am not going to say why, lines can move for any of a number of reasons.

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Milton, you predict UB also?

[Sniper]

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Absolute over/under changes to April 30. No, I am not going to say why, lines can move for any of a number of reasons.

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Hey Milton, I owe some responses to Bill, which I'll get to later, but I couldn't let this statement by you go unquestioned/clarified...

Can you clarify what you are saying?
Do you think Absolute is going out of business around April 30th?
What will be the catalyst?

[Uglyowl]

Absolute Poker pulling out makes zero sense to me. These guys spent years building a customer base on a business plan that seems to me was close to break even.

Recently, Absolute changed their bonus structure to a highly profitable model for them. The “gravy train” has just begun for them and to pull out now would be an absurd business decision.

They have no reason to? Unless you work for the DOJ, Milton and know of some planned raid in a foreign country or something similar.