I was doing a little research on bitcoin and ran across this site, https://sealswithclubs.eu/

Anybody ever heard of this poker room? Its a very new bitcoin operated site which means easy cash outs, no government interference, no banking, and completely anonymous. From what what little I've looked into it seems they accept US players although I don't see where it specifically says that on their website.

Right now the player pool is tiny but I wonder if this could catch on and be something good.

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Edit/MH: See new SWCPoker thread.

I did a little play money on that site. The player pool is tiny (there were maybe 4 tables going), you have to deal in bitcoins which are a pain in the ass, and the software is horrible (you can multi-table though).

If you're in the US and want to do real money I'd recommend Bovada or one of the other shady sites that still accept US players. The fact that it's all anonymous and unregulated means that once it gets big enough the cheaters and bots and colluders will swarm it.

Yeah I figured security could potentially be a problem, however the rake is fairly low. According to their site its 2.5% of the total pot size, rounded down, up to .1BTC. Based on the current value of a bitcoin around $12, thats a maximum rake of $1.20 across all stakes.

Traffic seems really light. Bitcoins in general seems pretty shady to me....

Im going to give it a legit shot and see what happens tho...

my buddy cashes out all his money on Seals almost every day


traffic is light but its been increasing.

i'll take ฿ any day over USD.

a bitcoin site would be far and away the best us facing online site if it were to just catch on with lots of people.

The overhead is tiny because payment processing is many orders of magnitude cheaper than sending out USD.

hm nice idea, what is the hype about bitcoins?

seems interesting but i doubt it will take off or work any time in the near future

I am playing there for the second time today. This past Saturday I put in 6 coins (~$70), ran it up to over 50 coins (~$550) (25-50 krill PLO), cashed out at 4 am EST, received the $$ in my wallet at 1PM EST. 9 hr cashout not bad at all....they say within 12 hours max.


As a test I sent $25 to my paypal account through bitinstant and bought lunch with my paypal mastercard debit. Definitely super awesome to be able to get $ out so fast.


Personally I have uses for bitcoins so I will just keep them and maybe play some more poker.

They actually earn me money just sitting in my wallet on BTC-e.

Check out the 6 month charts:

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgo...zm1g10zm2g25zv

double in value from 6 USD to 12 USD for 1 coin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)






http://blockchain.info/charts

sealswithclubs is legitimate, i received a cashout of ~400 btc (about 4k at the time) within a few hours to my wallet.

Since US government can't seize BTC, I guess Seals don't give a **** where the players come from.

Freedom at its best.

I heard you can only play heads up matches threw bitcoin.

that's a different site. A lot of people prefer HU, cause it's easy enough to collude when you're talking small sites with anonymous players. But you can play full tables on Seals.

Bit Coin can obv go down too. A year or so back it was at US$30 and crashed to almost zero when one of the major traders got hacked. It has however steadily climbed since then with a few drops along the way and right now is at US$12. I have been lucky and tripled an decent investment that I made just under a year ago to make up for getting ripped off by a rakeback provider - thanks for nothing RakeUpdate scum.

Also seals with clubs president ceo or whatever is Bryan Micon. A well known Vegas player, but not too popular with the owners of this site, who operates an online Poker Radio Show. Def set up for US players to play with no chance of fund confiscation but a possibility the currency will devalue as it has been pretty erratic. No harm in buying a few and cashing them back to US$ if you get hot but not a place for the whole roll I'd suggest - no aspirations on seals with clubs just the nature of the currency.

It didn't really crash to "almost 0", it basically fell back to its normal growth rate, like double what it was before it shot up to $30.

Sure, it can go down and it can go to nothing, but I don't really see Bitcoin's history so far as "erratic". If you look at the lifetime chart: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgo...zm1g10zm2g25zv

it's basically just steady growth with occasional big upswings that then correct and resume that growth. I don't really see the problem of owning something that does that. I prefer holding bankroll in bitcoins to holding bankroll in dollars, which are gradually losing value and a lock to continue doing so.

he's 'chairman'.

pretty volatile currency

The swings are probably mainly due to speculators, and with that comes bubbles and busts. However, as long as you buy somewhere around the mean average and not at the exceptional highs, you should be alright.

I also think that as time goes on the swings will be fewer and its real value will hold steady. The inflation rate is very low, unlike the US dollar which has lost 95% of its value over the years. And with QE3 coming out, there really isn't a foreseeable end in site for the devaluation of the dollar.

Micon is a site 'pro' and promoter.

I own and run Seals. I've been warned about promoting here and I don't know where the line is so I'm going to be careful. Contact info is on the site if anyone has questions.

i remember paying ~$26 USD/coin to fund my drug habit

then i checked back up on it and it was down to like $4/btc

debated investing -.-


LOL still have btc leftover on my SR acc
gonna deposit and play ^.^

This currency may stabilize, and it may continue to swing like a drunk Zigmund

In a pure supply and demand environment, the whims of a few men can wildly affect a small currency market such as bitcoin. That being said, if many more users start to actively use bitcoin the exchanges will stabilize from more buyers and more sellers.

Swing like a drunk Zigmund, LOL. Very true about low volume leading to wider swings. Very interesting thread; I plan to give both bitcoins (as a devout Libertarian, I love the idea) and this poker site a try soon. Thanks OP for bringing it to light here.

I bought some coins with paypal dollars through a guy in the poker site's chat room. It was pretty easy. They also have a freeroll every hour.

I have deposited / played / won / cashed out (and deposited / played / lost and reloaded) at this site.

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I do not waste my time on the hourly freerolls. Silk Road sellers play there all the time "so I have heard"

Further more buying coins from players in the chat for paypal is sketchy. Mutual trust is needed for this, and I understand if it works it's a quick and easy solution. I foresee many persons getting taken advantage of in this manner.

interesting... people actually buy from silk road? What's to keep the DEA or whatever from posting sales and then beating your door down when you put in your shipping address?