More Bad News from Neteller

[radiihead]

you guys need to make friends with a canadian. thats the solution. im canadian, went to school in the US, am back in canada. my friend transfers to me on neteller, i deposit, transfer to him on FT. and repeat, if he ever actually achieves a cashout im sure thered be no problem with that either

[Billman]

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a) There's got to be a way and I just know that somebody will step forward with a plan.

b) If there's a way around this then let's hear it but until then I'm going to assume that the funding picture for online poker sites looks pretty bleak.

Which one has any sense of logic to it?

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A

We're not dealing with a disease where nobody knows what the solution is. We're dealing with cash transfers which happen approximately eight billion times a day.

They don't need to invent a new process, they just need to apply one to their specific situation then design, test, and implement the software interfaces.

I think it's safe to assume that they have no higher priority right now. Testing this kind of crap is what I do. It takes time. A four week turnaround would be pretty damn quick.

If a site was going to cut out of the US market they'd have done it when they were threatened with jail time, not when faced with an urgent software update.

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What is that method? What's the new plan? You don't have an answer because neither do they.

No, we are not dealing with a disease but we are dealing with banking laws and since anything other than cash flows through the US banking system at some point or another we can assume certain things about the nature of any potential solution. The reason I compared it to a disease is that much like a disease you can't simply hope your way around US banking laws. Similarly, no matter how many mountains I move or how much hoping I do, I still have to pay taxes. So much like a disease, we are dealing with something that hoping and applying lots of effort to doesn't always guarantee success.

While I respect that you're a software tester, I've been involved in software architecture for 14 years. I designed the payment solutions platform for, what was then, the third largest eCommerce site in the world. I worked with, around, and on payment systems for over a decade and there are certain, non-negotiable truths about how money flows from party a to party b. You simply can't hope your way around those truths. That was why I was 1000% certain ACH would be cut off the moment I read the bill. And that's why I'm also pretty convinced (but not 100% convinced) that there will be no white knight payment solution coming to the rescue. Any solution that pops up will become popular and once it goes from too small to be on the radar to large enough to be noticed the banks will act to shut it down.

The only, only possible way to circumvent the law is to have players get their money out of the US banking system. That's it. There are no other options that have any chance of going undetected given enough players using it. And the only way to do that is to have banks in foreign jurisdictions open accounts for non-residents. Now, the only problem with that is that:

a) Even countries with liberal banking laws do have some sort of rules regarding non-residents which makes the process somewhat burdensome on the non-resident.

b) Any bank who starts opening up hundreds of thousands of bank accounts for US residents and initiates transfers from US banks to offshore banks is going to raise a red flag.

So because of B most legitimate banks aren't going to want to front for a casino. That means that someone like Stars has to buy a bank or start their own. Seeing has how that would take a year or more to complete and that even countries with liberal banking laws get very touchy about foreign ownership of banks in their country, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Plus you have the issue of US banks may catch on to what's going on and simply deny transfers to that bank from US residents which would basically mean that Stars spent a whole lot of money for nothing.

Starting to see why I'm not as optimistic as you? :-)

[HSB]

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Starting to see why I'm not as optimistic as you? :-)

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Of course I see why you feel the way you do. But like you say, all they have to do is get the money outside the US banking system and the benefits are in the hundreds of millions.

[KurtSF]

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Agreed. The thing with Neteller is a complete debacle, obviously, but I have little doubt that Stars and FT would move heaven and earth to devise an easy way for Americans to move money around.

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But can they move the DOJ?

Shhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhh. Everything's fine. Go back to sleep.

Uh, oh! I'm not a blind and rabid optimist! Maybe the thread will be lock or I'll be banned for not conforming.

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[Billman]

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Well, you are being a jerk. From the tone of your posts, it sounds like you're more interested in kicking people when they're down and winning an "I Told You So" contest than actually engaging in dialogue.


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How am I kicking people when they're down? All I'm doing is pointing out that the optimists in this discussion don't have a very good track record. It's not about being right, it's about warning people so they don't follow the optimist advice blindly.

If people spoke on this subject with properly balanced statements my tone would not even be present. When people tell you not to worry, that it's all going to pass, etc, etc. then yeah I word my opinions more strongly so as to get people's attention.

And if you don't know of anybody who predicted that ACH processors would get shut down eventually then you've got a serious case of selective memory. Did I know that the banks would voluntarily kick Neteller in the junk, no. Did I know that it would be rather trivial for banks to shut off ACH transactions to companies the US Treasury didn't like, yes. I was only off in terms of when, not if.

And again, it's not about me being right. It's about people who pontificated on this subject back in Oct and banged on the table that everyone who had a pessimistic view was over-reacting. Those people may have seriously screwed people over. If people would have discussed the situation in something other than a state of denial maybe some people would have taken extra precautions.

Believe me, this is a subject I don't want to be right about. Unfortunately, I am.

[Billman]

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Starting to see why I'm not as optimistic as you? :-)

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Of course I see why you feel the way you do. But like you say, all they have to do is get the money outside the US banking system and the benefits are in the hundreds of millions.

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Yeah, all you have to do is get around money laundering laws, foreign banking laws, tax reporting requirements for account holders, and about fifty other things. No problemo. :-)

Oh, and you have to do it before your business tanks due to the fact that players can't fund their accounts until you figure it out.

[jrz1972]

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While I respect that you're a software tester, I've been involved in software architecture for 14 years. I designed the payment solutions platform for, what was then, the third largest eCommerce site in the world. I worked with, around, and on payment systems for over a decade and there are certain, non-negotiable truths about how money flows from party a to party b. You simply can't hope your way around those truths. That was why I was 1000% certain ACH would be cut off the moment I read the bill.

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Oh and by the way, the current situation with Neteller has absolutely nothing to do with UIGEA. All of this stuff could have just as easily happened this time last year. And yet I don't recall anybody, you included, calling it back then.

[jrz1972]

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Agreed. The thing with Neteller is a complete debacle, obviously, but I have little doubt that Stars and FT would move heaven and earth to devise an easy way for Americans to move money around.

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But can they move the DOJ?

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The answer to that question is quite obviously "yes." Don't vacation in the US and don't route your flights through LAX.

[Billman]

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Bill... those who had been following my weather forcasting knew there was a hurricane coming... this too shall pass...

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Your weather forecasting seems to be pretty dead on.

[LuckyTxGuy]

Billman, I wish folks would listen to you know and would have listened to you for the last several months. I totally agree with your rational and realistic views on this thing. I've been saying for months that this would happen and it will be ugly when it does. Problem is people were posting by the hundreds saying there was no chance the legislation would ever pass.....then it did. Ya but none of the sites will ban US players....but they did. Well they will never really be able to slow down the money transfers....now they are.

They don't have to have ISP's block access to poker/gambling sites, they don't have to pass laws to make playing online poker illegal. All they have to do is stop the flow of money. They haven't stopped it yet but they are getting pretty darn close.