Legality of Poker thread: ohio bank seizes funds/bank account of 2+2er

[Squarehoop1]

What is the likelyhood that banks or the US government will begin to seize winnings from online gambling?

Not very high. If they decided to arrest someone on tax evasion or for the Wire Act they would sieze that person's or company's assets, but just seizing individuals I don't see happening.

Do you think that playing poker through a foriegn bank account is illegal or constitutes money laundering?

This, to me, is the legal issue I think needs to be made crystal clear. Is my placing of a bet through the internet (poker or sports) illegal? I have seen people say it is not, but I am not sure it is true (not remotely qualified to determine). If it is legal for me to place a bet then using a foreign bank account to do transfers must be perfectly legal.

Why? :
Example
In the UK the online sites are not illegal. They may be regulated in the future, but right now I can fund and place bets free of legalities. The businesses are listed on the UK stock exchanges, which is a highly legal process, so they must be considered legal entities by the UK govt. It can't be illegal for me to request my bank to send to a legal company (betting site or third party funder such as neteller). The bank could refuse based on moral grounds or perceived civil dangers involved with assisting gambling, but this is far different from being illegal. Of course, like all modern banks it is likely there will exist internet access for implementing the transfer.

So, the question boils down to this (IMHO). I am sitting in my US home and I log on to my bank site, or poker site, or third party merchant and request a fund transfer to a legally recognized bettting site, is this a violation of the UGEA (not sure right letters)?

I would have to assume no. If I flew over to the UK, got on the internet and did the same thing. This would have to be perfectly legal. The only difference is origination to the internet. The US could try to hold the ISPs libel, but this would never work cause AOL could not stop US citezens from having access to the HSBC web site? Once there AOL has no control over the actions taken. So, the US would try to claim it is HSBC's legal responsibility to recognize the account access was originating from the US, and if so, stop a transaction to a sport site (or some other entity the US might think was participating with them).

There is no possibility the US has the international legal right to do this. It would imply that the UK would have to monitor all US laws to make sure for some absurb exceptions. This one has some technical feasibility, but in the end a person in the US could log on to a proxy server in Costa Rica make the transaction (which would be just as illegal) and the UK bank would not know. Therefore the UK bank could only surely stop the transactions by not having US customers, or forcing the bank not to provide remote access to account transactions for US customers. Again, no way do I believe this would be legal through any international law. I am not a lawyer, and laws can be crazy, but doenst seem to make sense to me.

So, definitely not illegal in my opinion.

However, having said all that, I think the big banks of Europe will choose not messing around with America over supporting sports bettors. Barclays has already basically shown Neteller the door. Which is why I think the gold mine in this whole fiasco is for some foreign bank to grossly simplify the process of setting up a foreign account. For US, French, German and other bothereed citizens. It would, of course, have to be from a country that had little or no chance of making transactions to sports betting sites illegal. They would also have to have fairly mature banking laws to stop money laundering to prevent the "supporting terrorists" argument from being valid. Obviously, Antigua and Costa Rica are the places that come to mind. Don't know if existing established banks would be brave enough to want to upset the US, but maybe a private invetor could open a bank branch. As long as it was legally recognized, not much the US could do at that point.

If you had EU Citizenship, would you consider renouncing your US citizenship?

Not for gambling? Look at France, the EU flag wavers, they have adopted basically the same stance as the US. Btw, I am currently living in London and will probably have this opportunity in the future.

If you had EU citizenship, what price value would you place on American citizenship in dollars?

US any Day !!! Just cause we are stupid in this area doesn't mean we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I would prefer a larger scale, higher pressure grass roots effort to push back on our politicians. At the end of the day they scare easy when faced with larger numbers and good funding.

What do you feel is the likelyhood that Neteller money frozen will be returned?

Not sure, I think if the US govt really took it and doesn't give it back then the account holders are in fairly big trouble. If this turns out to not be the case, I suspect it will then be weighted by whether or not Neteller survives going forward.

Overall I agree with the other poster, odds are very high it will be returned, it will probably get dragged out for some time though.

Do you think the US government will target any poker/sportsbook affiliates and charge them with a crime other then tax evasion?

Maybe a sports book affiliate. For Poker, if they decide they want to end it, they will simply show up at the WSOP and arrest any pro associated with an online site, probably seize any funds form these sites they can get to, threaten any ISP with legal action who allows access and it will be done. By the time the legal mess was sorted the industry would be crippled and tainted with a bad reputation. There will be only one hope at that point, a massive grass roots uprising to kick them in the teeth. I don't hold much hope for that, but I don't really think the US govt wants to risk it either. Hauling off Doyle in cuffs claiming he is a terrorist simply would be bad PR. I also think, for whatever reason, they want to do in the sports books more then poker.

Do you think the US goverment will target any individual poker players and charge them with a crime other then tax evasion?

If they decide to threaten poker and poker players I think they will use tax evasion. My suspicion is there are probably a number of pros who could be found who have cheated on there taxes. Not because they are poker players because human nature says in such a large unwatched side income business some of them will cheat. The govt might use this to send a message. But, again, I am not sure they really are convinced they should put a stake in poker. It might actually create the backlash they are afraid of.

What percent chance do you think that online poker will be legalized in the US in the next 5, 10, and 15 years?

10 - 15 years, 99%. It will be legalized in most of the work in the next 5 years so none of the current govt arguments will hold water. They don't now, but there is no reference site to prove it.

5 years depends entirely on the the community to band together to mount political pressure. Looks more like passive surrender so far, I am not optimistic of anything in less then 5 years.

[theBruiser500]

"What do you feel is the likelyhood that Neteller money frozen will be returned?"

95+%. The likelihood it is not returned is the likelihood that you believe the guys behind Neteller are capable of full out criminal behavior. The money is almost surely in a segregated account held in trust for the account holders. However, if it looked like their business were going under, I'm sure certain people have access to that account and could transfer it all out then bribe some local government officials and maybe pay some attorneys a few million to keep people off their backs. I think that's a possibility (tons of white collar crime like this has happened in US companies, so it's obviously POSSIBLE here, though), but not a big one.


Diablo, how does what you say here compare with your thughts on a poker website like PS, FTP or UB running away with peoples money.

[Borden]

What are the odds that online poker will be legalized and taxed within the next 5 years?

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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Diablo, how does what you say here compare with your thughts on a poker website like PS, FTP or UB running away with peoples money.

[/ QUOTE ]

odds are slightly higher that this would happen. due mostly to the fact that:

1) Neteller is publically traded
2) Some of the companies are owned by who knows who operating god knows where.

Still, they probably stand to make more money by continuing to operate rather than by seizing money and running, so I think that's the route they will take.

Now, if the global online poker and casino market followed the path of the US in 6-9 months (France just did, Netherlands is close), then the industry gets blown up, and the chances rise.

[ahnuld]

My neteller check issued from a Canadian bank came back at my bank yesterday. Right now my 8k is in limbo and im not sure if ill get it back.

[NajdorfDefense]

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"What do you feel is the likelyhood that Neteller money frozen will be returned?"

The money is almost surely in a segregated account held in trust for the account holders.

[/ QUOTE ]

ORLY? Why did they remove any mention of that from their FAQ?
http://web.neteller.com/content/en/faq_index.htm
This is an honest question, why would they *remove* that fact if it were actually true?

ElD, saying there were more people watching NT than WCOM or ENE, or that nobody was looking at them is surely false. WCOM had hundreds and thousands of equity and debt and loan analysts watching them everyday and still perpetrated the biggest fraud in US history at the time. Same for Parmalat in Europe.

I'm not saying it's likely the $$$ is gone, but to think everyone is 95% likely to get paid back in a timely fashion can't be right, regardless of whether they are criminals.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NLR.L
Last trade Jan 16th, ouch.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"What do you feel is the likelyhood that Neteller money frozen will be returned?"

The money is almost surely in a segregated account held in trust for the account holders.

[/ QUOTE ]

ORLY? Why did they remove any mention of that from their FAQ?
http://web.neteller.com/content/en/faq_index.htm
This is an honest question, why would they *remove* that fact if it were actually true?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because the quote is on the US specific page


[ QUOTE ]
ElD, saying there were more people watching NT than WCOM or ENE, or that nobody was looking at them is surely false. WCOM had hundreds and thousands of equity and debt and loan analysts watching them everyday and still perpetrated the biggest fraud in US history at the time. Same for Parmalat in Europe.

I'm not saying it's likely the $$$ is gone, but to think everyone is 95% likely to get paid back in a timely fashion can't be right, regardless of whether they are criminals.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you only look at what Neteller will do, then ElD's 95% is understated... any expectation that Neteller will try to hold onto these funds, or someone from within Neteller will try to run off with them, is extremely remote. However, the wildcard, is what the DOJ will try to do...

[ QUOTE ]
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NLR.L
Last trade Jan 16th, ouch.

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Neteller has pretty much said, that as long as there is material non-public information, and lack of clarity around actions that might be taken by the DOJ, their stock will remain halted, at their request.

[El Diablo]

ND: Yeah, you're right, and of course the businesses you mention were of far greater scale than Neteller. However, what I meant was that in this case, fraud is almost expected, so they are clearly in the limelight in that regard. Very few people were considering that all the firms you mentioned were totally cooking the books. Having said that, you're probably right that fewer people that actually matter or have any real visibility/input into anything actually give a damn about what happens at Neteller. So maybe the chance is indeed much higher than I initially guessed.

Sniper: "any expectation that Neteller will try to hold onto these funds, or someone from within Neteller will try to run off with them, is extremely remote." You are saying this based on, "just because, that's not what companies do" right?

Bruiser: "Diablo, how does what you say here compare with your thughts on a poker website like PS, FTP or UB running away with peoples money." The chances of that happening are way higher. It has happened with sportsbooks before, no reason it couldn't happen with a poker site. If there were a crackdown and US players couldn't really play, then any site that didn't have a strong based of non-US players could easily just disappear. People have complained at times about having an incredibly tough time getting in touch with someone at FT and UB. Just imagine if those websites were just turned off tomorrow. I have no idea how Party is doing, but the more money they are making (off of non-US player base), the less the chances that these other sites would ever disappear like that.

[ahnuld]

fwiw I feel safer with my money on partypoker right now than neteller. I can wire money from pp to my bank too and they have already implemented their non-us player rules. As well, they are publicly traded on london so I feel safer there than any other poker site.