Super. Take your politics discussion to the politics forum, please.

As long as I don't get banned for derailing, I'll gladly take it there. That's part of the reason I posted it here as it's a pointless thread that wouldn't be affected significantly. Where as serious poker legislation threads would likely perceive this as a derail, as well.

It'll be funny if guys in those threads point me here.

I'd read the forum stickies and check out existing threads before posting there. There's a "Politics Unchained" forum as well which is a little looser with the rules.

Keep in mind that I'm referring to your recent posts about politics, Israel, etc. There's already a massive Israel-Palestine thread in Politics you might want to check out.

No idea why you think that someone would tell you to take a discussion about Israel to the "Poker is Rigged" thread. Won't happen, unless someone thinks it's funny to tell you to "go back to where you came from".

Because it's a "poker legislation is rigged" theory. Much like "poker RNG is rigged" theory.

That's not what I was telling you to take to the politics forum. I was talking about the more recent discussion about Jews not being a race, Israelis using bulldozers, Rothschilds, etc.

Your poker legislation part would probably be better in...wait for it...Poker Legislation.

Or maybe in NVG as a view.

Or as a PM to Josem or an email to Stars.

or written on a piece of paper, folded up, and inserted into the anal cavity

I don't know about specific tax situations, but do you realise that one of the key purposes of locally segregated markets was to stop PokerStars dominating the markets? It was promoted by "local" operators because they thought that liquidity (ie, access to a big international pool of players) was the key to dominating the poker market.

As has been demonstrated in France, Italy and Spain, that's clearly not the case.

I imagine that's (basically) what happens when PokerStars pays taxes to all the various countries where they have a shared player pool, such as .COM/.EE/.BE/.EU/.DK/.DE/.BG/.GR/.UK

No, it doesn't. A big part of it derives from an attempt to hamstring PokerStars at the expense of other, local, operators.

Well, you're wrong, because as explained above, that's what PokerStars is currently doing across around nine jurisdictions with shared liquidity.

As a general concept to date, PokerStars "claws back" about half the additional local taxes (mostly) in the form of reduced rewards to players, and the other half is absorbed by the company.

It's harder and more complicated to charge different levels of rake to players in the same cash game hand, but it's possible.

Thanks, Michael.

I never understood the purpose of a segregated player pool. I had a couple of ideas, but neither made complete sense.

It's good to know what is really behind it.

Of course, protected home markets never work to the advantage of the consumer.

What "local" operators are you referring to that requested segregation? Are these same local operators attempting to change the policy back since it failed and allowed Pokerstars to dominate even more?

Since, it didn't work, when is it going to be done away with and changed? Because, there is no reason to keep it around since it failed miserably.

What is Pokerstars actively doing to change it? Or, is Pokerstars happy with the fact that the policy allows them to dominate the market even more and content with leaving it the way it is, as a result?

It's extremely easy.

Do Bwin and Party Poker share player pools?

Yes.

Together with WPT / Empire / Gamebookers / Danske Spil

A couple years from now you'll be complaining about the RNG at America's Cardroom.

Pokerstars can't compete against a weekly $1 Million GTD in a state segregated player pool and their plan to return to the American market is moving at a snail's pace. They pretty much have until October to return to the American market and then nobody will want their shady site in their state because that would mean restricted access to the weekly $1 Million GTD.

Weekly $1 Million GTD America's Cardroom > state segregated Pokerstars

October can't come soon enough.

You're welcome to research the debates that took place at the time. Many of them are not on the public record.

PokerStars does - and has for the entire relevant history - always had the largest player pool. The idea that PokerStars somehow benefits from removing that player pool from consideration is stupid and idiotic and makes no sense. Clearly, having the biggest tournaments and the most cash games is a significant (not not the only) strength that any online poker room would want to have.

PokerStars has pretty consistently opposed segregating player pools, and I don't think there is any other organisation on this planet that has more consistently opposed them.

Why would I research them if they're not on public record?

That's not true.

Pokerstars only decreased from 1.9 million MTT players in 2010 to 1.7 million players in 2014 according to Official Poker Rankings. That's only a 10% decrease in MTT rake profit.

That 10% can easily be offset by the fact that you're cutting 100% of your biggest competitors out of any market your shady company serves.

Yet, they openly participate in segregated player pool systems.

Nobody forced Pokerstars to do business with France, Italy, Spain, etc. They could've told those countries to piss off if they weren't willing to participate in a global player pool. Pokerstars has been the biggest supporter of segregated player pools by participation alone.

Now, thanks to Pokerstars, American states want to do the same thing here and cut off access to superior American facing competitors.



Please keep your shady poker site out of my state.



.

Does America's Cardroom even have a weekly $1,000,000 GTD? I googled it a little last night and all I could find is they ran a $540 $1,000,000 GTD once in February.



And, URallFISH2me, a lot of what you say is just silly. As just one example, just because PokerStars opposes segregated player pools doesn't mean that when France, Italy, Spain, etc. pass laws segregating player pools for people in their countries that PokerStars should tell them to "piss off" and not try to get licensed and run a profitable business in those segregated player pools. It would be silly for a company to tell a country to piss off and withdraw from operating in that country upon such country passing a law the company doesn't like when the company can still operate in such country at a significant enough profit.

Lobbying to change the law would not be silly, but doing the above would be.

Well, maybe Pokerstars should lobby to do this.

As opposed to having employees waste time on riggie threads.




The weekly $1 Million GTD starts on America's Cardroom in October. Lobbying won't get Americans access to a weekly $1 Million GTD by October, Lego. I don't see what American will want Pokerstars in their state at that point. As their presence would restrict a player's access to a larger player pool with larger tournaments.



gg Pokerstars

You seem to be confusing segregated player pools with regulation and legality on the whole (see below paragraphs). For some reason you also seem to think that if PokerStars is allowed to operate in a state, somehow that will mean no other company is allowed to operate in that state. I think this is false. I do not foresee any state in the U.S. deciding to regulate online gambling/poker and decide to legislatively give PokerStars a monopoly. In fact, none of the three states in the U.S. that have already regulated online poker have thus far allowed PokerStars to offer online gambling in their states under such regulatory framework, but they have allowed other companies to do so.

It is perfectly possible for countries/states to regulate online gambling and make it illegal for companies to provide online gambling in their country without a license while still allowing global player pools.

Just getting rid of segregated player pools wouldn't necessarily make it legal for America's Cardroom (or whatever other company) to operate in a particular country/state.

And whether in a segregated player pool environment or a global player pool environment, it is perfectly possible for countries to issue licenses to PokerStars, America's Cardroom, neither of them or both of them.

In a situation where multiple countries require regulation and licensing to offer online gambling to their country, but allow global player pools, the practical workings may be a bit more complicated as it would be likely that some companies would be licensed in some countries and not licensed in others. Or there may be provisions in the laws of various countries that makes it hard to reconcile them to have a player pool involving such multiple countries while following the laws of each.




I live in New Jersey. At the moment player pools are limited to people physically present in New Jersey. And right now neither PokerStars nor America's Cardroom are permitted to operate in New Jersey and neither do. I would prefer that PokerStars was permitted to operate in New Jersey. (As we discussed they've been working on it and may be relatively soon.) I don't really know much about America's Cardroom. In a vacuum, allowing them to operate in New Jersey would probably be a good thing. I'm sure New Jersey players wouldn't be as excited by it as by PokerStars beginning to operate in New Jersey.

Are you going to be looking for a job in October, Josem?

Once America's Cardroom uses your company's flagship event to steal the American market away from Pokerstars they'll probably be making cutbacks.

: )

Looks like they removed all your bigotry filled manifestos, so I suppose your derail attempt actually semi-succeeded in a thread that is relatively immune to such behavior. Well done I guess.

As to your weird and ironic Winning network shilling, I work with them quite a bit and they do not regard Pokerstars as a competitor (despite having basically cloned their VIP program), and that is not because they expect to own the US market. They currently run a grey room for Americans which will never follow legislative rules in America (much like Bodog), so they regard their competitors as Bodog/Merge/Cake in competing for those customers willing to play on these types of rooms. All of them operate under the belief that they are too small to merit attention from the DoJ any more.

The weekly tournament you talk about, if implemented, will not be the game changer you suggest. It certainly will not be $215 like Pokerstars, and if Pokerstars makes inroads into the US (via the legal rooms there) then they will be going after a completely different player base than those that play on networks like Winning.

The next time I speak to the affiliate people at Winning I will bring up your post and viewpoint. No doubt it will give them a laugh (assuming I leave out your whole bigot thing). I also doubt it will be the first time people laugh at you given your limited knowledge on most topics.

Is America's Cardroom a skin on some network or go by some other name? I can't find it listed on pokerscout.

How much does ACR pay you for your obvious shilling, BTW? I'm not getting as much as I used to from the conglomerate of all poker sites.
It's on WPN, currently the 21st site on PokerScout's list.

Winning Poker Network.



Monterey,

It's not so much "my view" that WPN's $1 Million GTD will cause problems for Pokerstar's return to the U.S. market. It's an inevitable fact. WPN has access to 40+ states. Pokerstars can't even get access to one.

Players aren't going to sit around for 5 years waiting on Pokerstars. They'll abandon the site completely and take proactive measures to keep regulated online poker out of their states because it's inferior to unregulated online poker.

Winning network. Decent people there for what it is worth, and they are doing some good things with improving their tournament schedule (still wanting them to work on Sit and Gos more).

They have a number of skins of which America's Cardroom is the "largest" though it really does not matter as they have basically taken ownership of all the skins including ones like Black Chip Poker after they moved from Merge.

They are consolidating the affiliate program for all the skins for instance in an obvious move to improve efficiency.

They are still considerably smaller than Bodog, and they do not even consider Pokerstars in their universe. No idea why this weirdo thinks what he thinks, but he obviously has no idea about anything in the industry other than what bounces around his head.


It is definitely your view, and a completely uninformed one at that. I really wish you were not a bigot as I would have had more fun debating someone as clueless as you in this area, but I find that most of that fun has been drained.

Networks like WPN understand that as time passes the number of states they will be able to access will drop, so they are maximizing what they can, while they can, which is a valid approach for a company in their situation.

They cannot compete in states with properly regulated online poker, and that has nothing to do with Pokerstars, that is just the nature of their relatively underground nature of their business model.

Pokerstars did a similar (albeit much larger) gamble when the UIGEA passwed, which they could do as a non public ompany (compared to Party / Cryptologic etc), and those choices always have risks and benefits. Obvious benefit was that Pokerstars made a ton of money at the time. Obvious downside was they had to go through Black Friday and have a harder fight getting back into the US under proper US legislation.

Your faith in a single weekly theoretical tournament on a small network mattering is really weird. It has below zero impact on anything with regard to the evolution of the US market. You are certainly entitled to believe whatever you like, but you have no idea what you are talking about.



Most Americans at this point moved to another country to stay on Stars or moved on with their lives without poker. Small networks like Winning have always been around, even before Black Friday, and many Americans played on them at the time, particularly in the bonus whoring era.

You have a pretty strange understanding of this industry and the real world in general. Guess it makes sense how much of a bigot you are in a way, and no doubt if the mods said what your past posting account was we would see more evidence of just that.

According to PokerScout the Winning Poker Network has 2420 players currently online (with apparently 0 of them actively playing cash games) and has an active players 24 hour peak of 958 and a 7 day average of 525.

If they do a $500+$40 tournament with $1,000,000 guaranteed, they need 2,000 entrants to hit the guarantee. Even if they make it a rebuy and add-on tournament, I don't know how they're going to be able to run this weekly (or really at all).





EDIT:

Unless the PokerScout numbers are not accurate and/or do not accurately suggest the amount of tournament entrants they usually get.

Players go where the money is, Monteroy. It's common sense.

Pokerstars has no chance of giving Americans access to the kind of tournaments that Bovada, WPN, and Merge are currently offering. It's going to be years before Pokerstars can get into enough states to make playing on that site worth it. By that time people won't want that site in their state.

There is simply no longer a reason for Pokerstars to return to the U.S.

Best of luck to Pokerstars on the international market, but please stay out of the United States. Nobody wants you here anymore.