So Neil how exactly does it work for those players playing high stakes. Lay it out exactly so we can make an informed decision on playing here.

Thanks!

What a joke.

Why would anyone in their right mind play on this site?

It's going to lead to massive multi accounting.

Minted and bodog has to be run by the same inbred ****** for them to both implode this badly in the same week.

The fun of "going on a hot streak and winning a ton in 1 drunken night" is the thrill that keeps fish coming back/chasing for years. They'll only run that hot once in their life, but they'll talk about it and dream about it every second they're at the table.

To all of you with the opinion that winning players shouldn't be limited because they pay the most amount of rake, you have to look at it from a profitably standpoint for the skin. Just because the winning players don't play doesn't mean the games won't run.

From a pokerroom's perspective: If you consider all deposits revenue, and all cashouts a loss, then obviously the best way to limit loss is to limit the amount the winningest of players can cashout/make. By limiting the amount that the winningest players make, you creating more opportunity for breakeven and losing players to be profitable during any given session.

Losing and breakeven players withdraw much less than winining players, and eventually any profit they make during a session will be given back to the site in the form of rake, and they will have to deposit again.

So by increasing the rake, they're just speeding up the process of fish redepositing. And the fish will stay longer, because they will perceive the games to be easier, due to the limited presence of the sharks, and be under the impression that they can profit, when in reality any advantage they may gain from "Easier" game will be offset by increased rake.

I've obviously got a lot of "pissed offness" in my heart right now at everleaf's decisions, so I'm biased.

But this is a legit possibility. In the past 12 months, I've gotten money stuck on FTP and WSEX; and I've lost my money on AP. The online poker landscape is a lot scarier nowadays. If I was an everleaf player I'd take this as a warning to keep the MINIMUM needed to play online. It's way easier to deposit while on a downswing then to cash out when a site goes bankrupt.

Fwiw, this decision was made by Everleaf Network, not Minted Poker.

This made lol hard

Another thing Everleaf isn't considering is that a lot of winning players, have cashed out and started businesses with their poker winnings. Like rakeback sites, and poker review sites (I have for example, NO pming for site names because I don't want to be banned/infracted on 2+2)

If you attack winning players, we'll remove you from our listings, and give you poor scores if our website reviews poker networks. (plus we'll flood other sites that allow members to "vote" on their experiences with poker sites, and we'll give you ****ty scores...which you deserve I might add)

Poker feeds my family, and when sites like bodog and everleaf attack my income, I will fight back.

True...I should of said Everleaf Network.

Any site that is trying to make attempts to limit winning players from cashing out clearly does not have segregated funds for player's funds and company operating expenses. This is FTP all over again. Apparently only Pokerstars talks the talk and walks the walk when it comes to this.

There is a reason EVERY B&M casino in Las Vegas is forced to keep assets to cover every bet they take. Because it is a ponzi pyramid scheme to take bets and rely on future player deposits to cover them if they need to pay out.

Sites and Bodog and Everleaf are resorting to this "new model" because of a cash flow/liquidity issue. They want to keep money on the site, because the longer it stays there the higher % will be raked...fine we get that in principle. But to limit or cap potential winnings is insane. Imagine a brick and mortar casino poker room telling you you can't come back for a week if you have a good session one night. They can do that if you're playing table games, but in poker where you are not betting against the house this is insane.

Merge is now the last remaining reasonable option for US players, and even they have some issues of their own.

This post scares me. Here is an email I received today when asking about a WU withdraw request:

Merge is a joke, wil not play there.


Thank you for your reply.

Please be assured that we did receive your email to cashout $*** through Western Union, this was received 2011-11-29 12:52:07 server time.

Your cashout is being processed and we will email you with the MTCN number as soon as we receive this from Western Union.

If you have any further queries or concerns, please contact us at any time.



I don't wanna go all chicken little, but I suppose in todays enviornment...............

Also, this was on raiseandfold. Which apparently shut down on the 30th? I also still have some money on there.

Your post is all scattered. Who was that customer service email from? Everleaf or merge?

And what's wrong with merge specifically? IMHO, they are the lesser of all the evils for remaining US servicing sites.

I think Everleaf as a whole has a huge liquidity issue right now. These sites need to keep player funds separate from company expense and operating accounts, but they don't. Even on yahatay and cake they "refuse to comment" about such issues...ie THEY DONT.

Sigh

Sorry i've been up for a long time. From raiseandfold on everleaf

My big problem with merge is the long cashout waits.

Deposits are not revenue and cashouts are not a loss for the site. Rake is their revenue and deposits are money belonging to the player that the site is holding.

Of course Merge has long cashout waits....not as bad as Cake imo though.

here's the thing that scares me about everleaf. First minted had really fast WU cashouts...then about 1-2 weeks ago they started having mystery delays. Now its taking a lot longer. Plus, about 1-2 weeks ago smaller skins on everleaf like raiseandfold start closing up shop. And now sites trying desperately to keep big withdraw regs capped or limited. It all smells of a really bad liquidity issue on their end. I don't know cause i don't have any proof, but something just smells of them being pretty bad underwater. Like I said, I can't say for sure, just call it an educated guess from someone who knew exactly the housing market was gonna tank in 2006/2007.

Of course everyone at everleaf is gonna spin it however they want. who cares what they say. and honestly, who cares what i say. all I'm saying tho, is look at all the little clues and make a decision for yourself.

AirborneSapper9845, things are bad enough without you talking about stuff you don't know about. Might wanna give it a rest for a little bit. People have enough real concerns with out being bombarded by phantom ones.

I see that you posted again before I got this one out.

Just do some research instead of saying "it smells like this or that" because the research that has been done so far is that both Everleaf and the Malta regulator have officially confirmed funds are segregated. As far as I know the regulator is considered the best one next to probably Isle of Man/pokerstars regulator.

exactly!

Where is bodog and everleaf (and I'm sure others) getting the idea from that it's their money when you deposit. FTP apparently thought so too, didn't work out well.

wttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt ttttttttttttttffffffffffffffffffffffff

The red flags are being raised so clearly. I would question the liquidity of the everleaf network. Lets be honest... Neil said it best himself...

Now why would the network care if .004% of the players are winning over 50% of the net win on the entire network? They are obviously trying to keep money on the network.

Bottom line.... I would certainly not keep a lot of money on the network at all!!!! No money is 100% safe in any poker account anymore... and minted has the red flags raised!!!

This root of this problem is really these gaming commissions which are clearly a joke. Apparently no online poker site has any true sense of oversight or regulation. Just look at the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and the way they originally handled the AP/UB superuser cheating scandal. These gaming commissions are paid fronts, meant to install confidence in the players but clearly they do no real accounting and probably do not even have full access the real financial details and documents these sites have. It's all Monopoly money to these sites, they take player deposits and use them for promotional, marketing, operating, investment, research and design, payroll, and other expenses and count on future deposits to pay for withdraws. That's why it's so important to keep the cash flow at a beneficial rate. Hence why these sites need to slow down big withdrawing players or else they will go completely underwater. Bernie Madoff didn't stop his scheme cause he felt bad, it's cause the money finally ran out. Any site that doesn't segregate their player funds from other expense accounts are essentially running a scam. They are taking out corporate loans unknowingly against player deposits. Why do you think the FDIC needs to insure US bank deposits?

If you think I am full of crap...do me a favor and write FULL TILT POKER on a stick and hit yourself over the head with it a few times.

Yea, I would hope no one keeps much money on any site these days so I agree with the above and that's not what I was trying to refute.

I'm talking about how we have that poor guy above sweating weather he's going to get his (maximum) $1,000 or less western union withdrawal now. There's no need to put that guy through that from an unsubstantiated claim.

Don't keep much money on any site and know there's a risk on all sites in this landscape. Sucks, this game is being attacked at every conceivable angle and anyone who's still playing can easily claim they are survivors and are very flexible.

EDIT: Sigh, don't group Kanawake in with every regulator please. Kahanawake are an absolute joke because they earned that. Everleaf's regulator (LGA) are not only way more reputable, but they do consistent auditing. I can't remember exactly how often it was but I want to say it's at least 4 times a year. Look into it if you need the specifics.

TY sir


I am not sweating whether or not I will get my WU. However, I am concerned for the future of everleaf as I was planning on playing a lot here, mostly due to Italian players.

Still wondering why I got the message about not being able to play at certain tables. And why so many of us got it. Doubt its cuz we are all in the top 0.04%

The top 0.04% on everleaf has got to be like 4 ppl cuz they don't have that much traffic

I actually have a lot of research, but obviously I have no smoking guns because if I did I would be the first to post. But my main point is, you can't trust every licensee from every gaming commission, especially one that handles online gaming. I'm not saying necessarily Malta is as shady as Kahnawake Gaming Commission or the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, but if you look at all the licenses that Malta has some are with sites that are kinda shady. And it's super easy for these sites to cook books to get around the kind of audits these commissions do. My point isn't to scare anyone. It's to remind players, to be vigilant and cautious. I think that time and time again as a community we have been shown that you can't trust any site at any time for any reason. All you can do is deposit and hope you aren't the last one holding a withdraw slip when the party crashes.

Ok, so it's monthly audits not "4 times a year" or w/e I guessed above, and it's ring fenced, etc. Got that from a poster in the Minted thread and TiltTheTilt and some others confirmed they also did their own investigation and came up with the same.

Again, this is not saying you should keep any more than the absolute minimum on any poker site in this ****ed up landscape, but it is saying Everleaf has a really good regulator that shouldn't be compared with Kanawake and their sham operation.

Fine and dandy and I'll spare you quoting what you wrote and simply say you didn't do a very good job of that. You were a little over board and throwing out all kinds of stuff based on "feelings" and "smells" or whatever. Anyway, if anything I'm glad it made me look for the confirmation as maybe some people can look into it even deeper than those before them have now as well.

It also should be noted that neither regulator you mentioned, Kahanawake nor Alderny would ever say they had segregated funds as a requisite for their licensees and would either dodge the question or have it buried somewhere in the fine print that it indeed wasn't a requirement. IOM and LGA have never dodged that question from what I've seen and have always stated exactly what their requirements are and procedures for confirming those requirements at request.

That's good. Keep in mind that Full Tilt claimed their funds were segregated too. And they cooked the hell out of their books and the Alderney Gambling Control Commission just signed off on it year after year.

Does this mean every (or even any site) that is licensed by Malta does this? Of course not. But LOL you can't blindly trust whatever they say by the same token.

We are not arguing, in fact we are agreeing: keep your bankrolls to a bare minimum needed for your stakes, redeposit in a downswing, cashout in an upswing.

But I'm just so fed up with these online gaming commissions that don't do crap. I know a lotta people in the B&M casino business, and most state gaming commissions are tough as hell. This is what we need government for, for proper oversight and regulation. Instead out government fights it and pushes all players to have to deal with this crap.

Is Minted going to go belly up in 3 months? Does Everleaf really have 100% of their player funds in segregated accounts? Who knows. I don't really care. That wasn't my original point. My ORIGINAL point was about Bodog, and then how Minted seems to be following suit. Everyone is talking about how they are doing this as a business strategy, and whether it's a good business model or not. I am simply saying, read between the lines. There is more at play here than meets the eye. They don't want the money on their site for as long as possible solely just so they can rake a higher percentage of it (although that is definitely a contributing factor). Like a million people have asked already, how does it make sense to have less tables going, and less higher stake tables going? If it doesn't make sense, there is probably a reason for it. I agree it would be reckless to make allegations that Everleaf or Minted is insolvent and is implementing this because of that, but I also think it would be naive to assume that cash flow and liquidity doesn't have at least some factor in it.