It's only a matter of time, of course. I have a fair amount of money in this site right now. I have been seriously weighing the convenience of having a decent bankroll at my fingertips vs. becoming one of those famous stories that guys have who lost a bunch of money when a site went down.

Does anyone more experienced than me in these things have any thoughts on these sorts of time frames play out or any thoughts on exactly what level of safety/cautious is the most prudent.
Thanks.

Just withdrawal whatever you don't really need for the stakes you play? You can always deposit.

Sure, however I play 2/4 PLO and bigger so a healthy bankroll is 12,000 dollars. I would be pretty hurt to lose 12k.

For safety I would do it, but I don't love the 3 percent paypal cut moving thousands of dollars back and forth for safety all the time. Although I suppose that I agree it is probably the most prudent course.

12k for 2/4? Surely you could get away with like 6-8k, I would suggest cutting it as close as possible with how much you keep on the site as a start.

Personally I don't think we have anything to worry about in the vein of "how long do we have left" like a sudden ending to Global Poker is ominously on the horizon.

This site has been carefully modeled to be legal under US sweepstakes laws. Not by Bob and John in their garage, by a legal team. Further it has been vetted and accepted by PayPal's legal team. Even if one argues VGW's legal has motivation to stretch the terms of the law in their favor, Paypal certainly does not. They are vehemently anti illegal gambling, if they even sniff potential legal issues they wouldn't process Global's transactions. And this isn't an offshore operation beholden to no regulatory body (or a puppet regulatory body), it's a publicly traded company out of Australia who's beholden to shareholders and regulatory agencies accordingly.

Is it possible that something could change in the future that would cause Global Poker to no longer be available in the US? Yes I suppose... but like most things moving through the legal system I expect if that ever happened it would be slow and visible as it came towards us. And as a publicly traded company I feel confident player account balances would remain safe and be returned should that time come.

Is it possible they will close up shop overnight and walk with everyone's account balances in the dark of night? Given the facts above, that seems exceedingly unlikely.

Well I certainly hope you are right. However, I don't have as much faith in this poker sites 'legal team'. I am glad global is doing it's think, but it's very obviously a thin, dubious legal loop-hope.

Sheldon Adelson was a major campaign contributor to Trump and he is the man behind poker prohibition.

The sky isn't falling, but does anyone really thing this will last 2 years?

It's not my intention to argue though and you make some points worth considering.

There is almost zero chance the RAWA is passed or anything else close to it. There are many reasons for it.

It would end online state lotteries. There is one thing that the filthy scum, politicians, will never go without and that is easy money. The amount of funds they could misappropriate that would be taken away from them here is huge. Every state legislator would fight to the death to continue to weasel money from hard working people.

Republicans, as a breed, prefer to yield power to the States and not rule from the top. A handful of states currently allow online poker and another dozen or so will likely pass it in the near future. Just like the legalization of marijuana, there is too much taxation possible for the political pigs to walk away from. The only concern the politicians have is the ability to tax and collect on the winnings. Did they step up and try to actually help people get their money back? When someone scams the general public, the judicial system removes them from society and pretty much insures that reimbursement is rarely ever accomplished. Neither the politicos nor the justice system give a shizzle about the individual. They do have a keen concern for taxation, though.

The sweepstakes model also is used by many huge charities and corporations. This would not go over well if that was removed. The amount of monies that would be lost would be in the tens of billions per annum. They would sue on up to the SCOTUS to be allowed to continue to do this.

RAWA's purpose was to target the illegal activities of organized crime and their movement of money across state lines. There has been judicial opinions issued that poker, fantasy sports, etc... is a game of skill and that is why neither are covered by UIGEA. Even now, there is no federal law that prevents someone from playing poker online or even gambling. There are laws that make it illegal to make possible those events. That is why most US banks and financial institutions deny the transactions. They are also not stupid. They know when you send money to some Asian corporation the reality is there is more to it than meets the eye. They do not care, as long as the wrong arm of the law cannot come and clawback the fees they charged to facilitate your transaction.

The same goes for PayPal. They know exactly what VGW is doing. They have a legal team that advises them on what they can and cannot do. They will allow every single transaction they can as long as they cannot get in trouble for it. Their attorneys, even smarter than some of the naysayers that post on public forums, look at this stuff very closely. Their job is to protect their client and they are paid very well for it. If they tell PayPal it is okay and it turns out the justice department were to say, no you're wrong; then they would have a financial risk to bear for poor advice.

Now that judicial opinions are on record that poker is a game of skill, in order for a ban to be placed at the federal level, they have to argue against that finding. The only thing more difficult than the enactment of a law in the legal system is overturning an existing one. There are certain rules that apply to what and how things can be argued. As an example, the paranoia of Trump's administration somehow overturning the Marriage Equality Act is almost laughable. They would have to argue to the SCOTUS why a right that is afforded to some is not permissible for others. You cannot use religious expression as a form or prosecutorial argument, only in defense. There is no argument that can be made outside of one steeped in religious foundations. When a judge said poker is a game of skill, they would not have to prove it is not. There is zero chance of that. A game void of skill has no human decision making involved. In spite of some players showing evidence of having no skill or decision making ability/involvement, it is quite easy to argue that poker is a skill based game, indeed.

Trump has even said he wants to create a panel to discuss the viability of widespread sports betting throughout the US, IRL and online. The move is to deregulate and that is a priority of the Republican party. The paranoia that Adelson's donations somehow has a bigger impact than the burdensome bureaucratic red tape is nonsense. He is but a spoilt over-sized child that had deep connections with a handful of politicos. The very same politicos that desperately want to get their grubby little hands on more of the taxpayer's money. To argue it from a lobbyist's point of view, there are far more companies/entities that would like to conduct online gambling, games of skill, etc... than those that want to prevent it.

Online poker has two issues, taxation and violation of agreements with Native American tribes that offer brick and mortar gaming. If PS, as an example, is legal for all, how does the Indian nation that has an agreement that they will be the only operator of a casino and/or the games played in a casino get compensated for violation of their exclusivity clause? Once those issues can be resolved, the states will move forward on it. The potential tax dollars are just to large to allow them to escape.

+1 on glutenfree and +1 on a dewd

Sometimes I feel like we treat the online poker industry like some rec players play Kings. "I hate Kings they scream, an A always hits the flop, or some jerk gets there with J3o." Could the sky be falling? Sure. And sometimes your Aces also get cracked. I still happy when I see either hand as my holdings when the cards come out.

I always say to those people, and to those that think the sky is falling at Global. "Then fold Kings pre-flop, you do you boo boo"

WT...F

A dewd is smart AF. Hey, so what's the deal with Global having a potential patent on the sweepstakes model? I thought their admin said something about that but I don't see how that's possible. I'm sure Global has caught the attention of many other sites so it would stand to reason that there would soon be a bunch of copy cats. I hope this is the case so we actually get some competition and thus more player incentives. Global is absolutely screwing their current players with negative -4.7% rakeback (I though negative bank interest rates were bad)

They are operating based on their own opinion and their legal teams opinion on sweepstakes law. All it takes is for someone to disagree with their legal opinion and they will shut them down. The problem with VGW is if they get shutdown they are not holding any funds or dollars of players. They are simply holding arcade tokens that players purchased. It's a lot easier for a legal entity like VGW to be taken down than an offshore site.

There is no reason at all to be keeping a lot of money on any site nowadays. Whether it's Global Poker and Paypal or an offshore with Bitcoin. It's very easy to get money in and out quickly.

It's a good idea to keep the minimum you need at all times, but as I make more money I slowly increase the amount I keep on the site as I figure I've made enough that it becomes acceptable risk. I always want to have a decent bankroll for the stakes I play.

Even if they get shut down I think they'd still be allowed to let people cashout their arcade tokens. It's no different than when daily fantasy sites were shut down in NV and NY. People still got paid.

This will never be solved, look at the situation in CA, ask the PPA or anybody else who has been following it. Only route I see would be the whole sovereignty of tribes being overturned on a nationwide level and that wont happen. I am disgusted by the level of control the tribes have as a white male resident of CA but I can tell you if they dont want it it'll never happen.

I think our funds are fine, I think the GP will only get bigger. I just hope not too big with the whole planet of bots and cheats and micro pros that we all know are various forms of cancer to the US online poker economy.

I agree with you as far as California goes. I am a resident of California and New York. In NY, something was worked out and the tribal nations have not offered any fight against the oncoming legalization of online poker in the state. In California, the tribes are dead set about the idea and will not even entertain a discussion. It sucks for the general public, but I think if I were one of the tribal leaders I would battle it hard, too. The reality is, at some point it will happen, the only question is at what cost. The more the tribes dig in, the more they will have to be paid off to get them to agree. I will bet they will want a rake of all the online poker that is generated in the state plus a 'hardship' fee/license to allow access to the sites in the area of non-compete their charter has.

I also don't see the tribes uniting at the national level. Too much internal competition and which tribes are going to agree to allow others to represent the entire community? Egos will prevent that from happening I bet.

Fantasy sport sites hold players funds in dollars and are required to have players balances segregated. VGW does not hold any players funds nor are they required to. They receive payment for gold coins. They are absolutely not under any requirement to pay players anything if they closed their doors or were shutdown. That alone should make you not want to keep very much on the site.

I strongly disagree with what many are saying here. Here's why.

1.) Paypal used to be VERY anti gambling, and didn't really like to take chances with any of their business decisions. However that was back when Paypal and Ebay were actually 1 company. Now that paypal and ebay have become 2 different companies, paypal has been a lot more aggressive in their idea of what is legal, and how to grow.

2.) Getting a lawyer to say something that is in the grey area is actually legal (or illegal) is pretty easy. I hire lawyers all the time for my rental property drama, and even in something as "mainstream" as real estate there's still plenty of grey area, and lots of times a lawyer will say, "we can interpret the law that way, but it'd be better not to chance it." It's certainly easy Global was just willing to risk it, or they hired a law firm that's willing to put their customers in that grey area because if it does end up in court they know they'll get huge fees.


Honestly it doesn't matter to me whether some random on the internet keeps their money on global, keeps the min needed, agrees with me, or disagrees with me. I do remember the UIGEA and Black Friday though, and those were for sure in the top 5 most stressful days of my life.....so I'd hope to help people avoid that if I can...so I'd personally recommend keeping the min...and if the 3.9% paypal fee is really "that" big of a deal, you probably were barely making it with poker anyways and I'd recommend doing something else anyways.


(side note: I play global, I keep money on global, but there's no way I'd keep anything even remotely close to "life affecting" on ANY US facing poker site)

FWIW I agree with this 100%.

Actually, VGW, DraftKings, ClubWPT all operate under the laws of the US. Pretty comical to think they form their own opinions and then operate on their own plane somehow.

As an example of the sweepstakes law, pertaining to VGW, is when they post a contest on FB asking some poker related question and then randomly picking winner/s out of the correct replies. They award $weepsCash, which enables the winner to ask for a withdrawal or play games of skill or chance on the site using the $weepsCash. If you open a poker lobby, there is a GTD amount of say 2500 $weepsCash. You are not playing for money. In fact, the same model is used at DraftKings and I even posted a chat I had with one of their reps confirming it plus the phone number for Paul Liberman who is one of the founders of the company. Some people will refuse to even believe the founder's explanation, either VGW or DraftKings in this case, as to how and why it works.

The reason your money is most likely to be very safe is the fact that they are a public company. This is not a case like Full Flush where they are hidden on some tax haven location with no reciprocity issues. They report and get audited all financial activity to regulatory bodies. Misuse, let alone theft, would likely result in incarceration. There have been cases of financial fraud in the public markets, but that is a very very small percentage of the overall public arena. Add in the fact, the executives and Board are long standing business men, with public track records, and Blythe-Tinker is the former head of William Hill and has a decades long career in investment banking adn you are probably pretty safe.

PayPal, (symbol PYPL), is also publicly traded. Public companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. They also report all financial transactions to regulatory bodies. Any skirting around the law would be met with sever sanctions with possible imprisonment, too. PayPal cannot, nor VGW, get an attorney to issue an opinion outside of law, regulation, and ethics. PayPal does not have enough money to pay any SEC law firm the amount of money to sign off on something that they would so easily get caught doing.

Sarbanes-Oxley mandates that all auditors and legal representation, along with control shareholders, Board members, and the entire executive staff are jointly and severally responisible for any and all wrong doing in the company. That means if legal counsel issues an opinion that is pattently false and misleading, all the above individuals are civilly and criminally responsible for their actions. There is more likelihood of you flopping a straight flush 4 hands in a row than VGW and/or PayPal voluntarily violating SEC, FINRA, ASX, RBA, or CFR, possible but so slight it is an unreasonable discussion. If VGW were to be shutdown by the authorities for any reason, their accounts would be seized and then would be paid out to applicable parties. VGW would have to be willing to forgo the millions of cash they have in their own account in exchange of stealing their clients two million bucks or so.

My background is that I've been an investment banker/fund manager for almost thirty years. I am speaking from too much experience in the markets, dealing with the associated regulations and their enforcement agencies. The reason for my deep due diligence was to determine whether or not I would invest in the company's stock. No need to trust me though, call Adam Z. Solomon at 212-730-7700 and ask him directly, he is their US legal counsel. Opinions are great for discussion, but having the truth/facts is much better when it comes to decision making.

More information than you could possibly want on VGW http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/2016010...wkvqbww4kk.pdf

You can also contact PayPal's general counsel:

Louise Pentland at 408-967-1000

She is only responsible for compliance with all worldwide laws and regulations for PayPal. Surely she would not risk her 650K salary millions in options over mismanagement.

There will still be people that have no interest in verifying anything but adhere to easily disproven beliefs and/or opinions.

question dewd, why cant stars do a similar thing and issue sweeps to american players and let us play their worldwide tournaments?

Random side thing: I used to play poker all the time in Spokane Valley Washington at a casino called Owl Club Casino. It was 100% legal, regulated, and good to go. They then rebranded and renamed their casino Even Stevens, still 100% legal and regulated.

One day I had a really good blackjack session (they used to give match play coupons and I'd use them non stop) and ran it up pretty good (started with $20, ran it up to over $200 with match plays).

Well, the cashier line had a HUGE wait, and I wanted to head home, so I just stuck the chips in my pocket and went home. Next week (always went on a Wed) I arrived to find out that day it closed down.

Those chips, now worth $0, are my 4 year old daughters new most expensive toy.

Even in regulated/legal/100% legit casinos there's ways to get screwed. Even in banks that are FDIC insured there's scenarios where you end up screwed. So I choose to limit my risk/exposure ESPECIALLY on sites like Global. (hell, even companies like Enron will straight up just lie/cheat/steal)

It's your choice, but imo it's extremely foolish to keep "life altering" money on there.

Poker Stars willingly signed an agreement with the US to stay out of the market here in exchange for no charges against them. If they tried to come in through some back door now, they would get slammed. Any other site could do it, but then they possibly risk losing their existing markets due to some goofy sweepstakes setup.

It is all made possible because Congress has to make the laws. Fortunately, they are not very bright and often leave tunnel wide holes through their regulations. That is the case now with legal sweepstakes and the UIGEA. Since states can hold online lotteries, then anyone can offer a sweepstakes. I do it as a marketing ploy in social media to build up an email base. We give away a Galaxy or iPhone to some random winner that retweets some nonsense and follows us. We add thousands of new followers and it only costs us 700-800 USD to do it.

Part of the 'sweepstakes' law is a no purchase necessary aspect. So, Global says mail postcards to xxx address and we will give you some $weepsCash or answer a trivia contest on FB for $weepsCash. That fulfills the 'no purchase necessary' aspect and then it is a game of skill for something that has no value outside of their website. That fulfills the no real money terms. It is why banks and financial institutions will process payments with VGW. You are not buying $weepsCash, you are buying gold coins. There is never any legal tender held in your account. This is a long winded way of playing online poker.

An existing site like WPN would be hard pressed to create such a model and then try to explain it to the rest of their player base all over the world. They would lose a lot of players and since btc is available in the states, there is no real need for it, anyway. It isn't like the lawmakers are not aware that WPN has a large US customer base. There is nothing for them to go after aside from seizing the website. They cannot prove a deposit with btc or some random Chinese company for credit card transactions. It just isn't a real concern of theirs. Global lives inside the holes they creaeted from not being able to think things through and they just don't have the wherewithal or support to correct it. State governors would be filing lawsuits withing hours if they banned online sweepstakes. All that money in their state lottery gone....they'd freak.

Poker Stars is coming online in the states in dribbles and drabs. It will continue the next several years. To put that at risk and violate a signed agreement would set the justice department on fire and they would end up smoking Amaya out of existence.

I agree with you RikaKazak on your last two posts. Keeping life changing money with an online poker site OR banked at a brick and mortar casino is inane. That pretty much addresses your second post, too. There are 100 year old established companies that go out of business and it could happen to anyone. VGW could go out of business in a myriad of ways, like any operating entity, I just don't see it from fraudulent management. Scary when it happens though.

As a fund manager, I would have never thought Lehman Brothers, old established company, would have gone out of business. In fact, there was no logic to sending them out. Curbing a perceived inflationary market by destroying tens of thousands retirement accounts is stupid, but it is the government. They could have waived the net capital requirement, stepped into the market to stop the bleeding, tighten up margins, and several other constraints allowing BearStearns, Lehman Brothers, and the rest of the investors in mutual funds get slammed. If the correct answer is the government, you are probably asking the wrong questions.

^This

If the gubberment wanted to crack down on sweepstakes models, surely they would go after Draftkings, Fanduel and Club Dub first?

bout 14 weeks

I bet the site will be overrun with grinders, before the gubberment even thinks twice about shutting it down.

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/m...l_372838_7.pdf

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(lya...me=mcl-750-372

"If the lottery or gaming is part of the business and cash or other payoffs to winners are regularly occurring, the activity is most likely illegal."

"(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a lottery or gift enterprise conducted by a person as a promotional activity that is clearly occasional and ancillary to the primary business of that person. As used in this subsection, “promotional activity” means an activity that is calculated to promote a business enterprise or the sale of its products or services, but does not include a lottery or gift enterprise involving the payment of money solely for the chance or opportunity to win a prize or a lottery or gift enterprise that may be entered by purchasing a product or service for substantially more than its fair market value."

Global Poker is clearly not running this sweepstakes "occasionally".

This is from the state of Michigan when they shut down internet cafes running the same type of sweepstakes as Global Poker. You purchase some time on their computers and you are given credits to gamble with. Its exactly the same as Global. Michigan has some very strict laws in regards to sweepstakes and lotteries. I think Global is in violation of quite a few state laws that allows people to gamble under the guise of sweepstakes.

PayPal will let it slide because I do not think they are in violation of federal law. State laws are another matter.