Souce: http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room...united-states/

2p2 pokercast gets a mention! Will wait to see what the legal fallout from this is now.

"Day gives one example of a player who was only 200k VPPs away from Supernova Elite (PokerStars’ much coveted top-tier VIP level) who had his account suspended after a friend told him it was safe to play on a VPN."

Solid advice

Glad to see PokerStars is helping to crackdown on them foreigners coming into our 'murica and playin' the devils game on our sacred soil. USA #1!

DoJ clearly influencing this and PS wants to abide by their rules. Just another way DoJ is current screwing w/ US players.

Yes these players are breaking the rules, but the rules stink.

I'm with you here. I hope you guys get your money back at least.

LAND OF THE FREE LOL

Yeah, they froze mine for days and I didn't even play from the US, have never used a VPN, and have never done anything wrong. Thankfully it was unfrozen for today ;D

Listen, DOJ, do whatever the hell you want to your own citizens but keep it the **** in America and leave the rest of us alone.

My account was suspended just over a week ago, 4 months after I had played from the USA. At the time I was under the impression that the block was a blanket measure designed to stop US based people playing and had no idea that me wanting to play whilst visiting was going to be such a big deal.

Obviously I'm expecting to at least get my funds back but I think it would still be a gross overreaction to perma ban these accounts. Given that we never withdrew/deposited to/from USA bank accounts it's not like we caused a breach of UIGEA or anything.

from the poker fuse article

“Tell all your friends – it’s a mistake to try to do this,” Day adds. “Many people are getting caught, and the consequences are severe. We have to enforce the rules.”

eff lol take care of botters and coluders pls and stop with thoses waffles
I don't even know if acc to the US law book when you're using a VPN you're considered beeing physicaly in yhe United States
Stars champs of "overzealousing(sry for the made up word)"

First of all I think it's a shame that people from the US are not allowed to play. I myself know of people with setups using VPN, I understand why they do it, Hell I would prob do it myself if I was US citizan.
I think it's fine that ps does what it can to prevent this and following the rules, but what if a person who is not us citizan decides to go on vacation in the US and continue to play using a VPN connection, is this not allowed? I mean as I understand the rules it is US citizans that are not allowed to play, but a tourist in US would be allowed, I know that the US IP's been banned, but if these players use a VPN, I got no problem with that.
Anyone knows what the rules are for non us players, being in vacation in the US?

Is this really true? I mean is this really the only way they are catching people or are they spying into your computer more than people realize and so they can see what you are doing regardless of whether your connection drops?

If they are, do people think it is OK for Stars to use its software to snoop into your privacy? It'd be sort of like the police tapping the phone lines of every citizen and then using the fact that they caught people breaking the law as justification for such an invasion. I am unaware what Stars does to snoop into peoples machines, but perhaps others know better?

If one company was going to bother checking VPNs it was always going to be Stars. I know tons of people using VPNs on others networks with no problems. Don't see why people thought they could get away with it at Stars tho.

Agree with FDSaussure tho.. hope he gets his money back!

From http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/tos/

You cannot play while you are on US soil - it doesn't matter if you are vacationing as a foreigner, a US citizen visiting home, or anything else. Do so and your account is at serious risk.

If there's anything US-related to your connection (location, IP, VPN, anything), you cannot do it, and if you choose to ignore that, you are at risk of having your account frozen. Don't assume "I can just shoot them an email and resolve this quickly" even if you just make a mistake - any violations of this nature are investigated extremely thoroughly.

While I can see that using a VPN may be against PS's terms and conditions, which they put in place to protect themselves from further prosecution, why does the DoJ get to decide what happens to the money?

Surely the DoJ can only seek to enforce US law, such as the UIGEA - which relates to money transfers.

What US law would visitors to the US be breaking when they play on an account that was created and funded before their arrival?

Thank you. While I understand your need to keep some detection methods private, I think it is very fair that you at least make clear the extent to which you are 'snooping' on players computers who are using your software. Obviously you have every right to check the IP etc, but are you scanning to see other things going on with peoples computers? I think players have a right to know how much Stars can see on their computer beyond just where they are logging in from.

Annoyingly 5.11 is missing from the UK version...

http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/help/user-license/

what if someone from the UK (anywhere non-US) who legitimately uses a VPN for security purposes (say while on a wifi network) uses a USA VPN and connects to PokerStars without thinking about it? Head asplode.

Your account will be suspended pending investigation. I guess you would have to prove you weren't in the USA.

what I understood after reading all those legislation ,BF threads is that it was not illegal for a player (US citizen or not ) to play for money on the US soil but for the banks or whatever financial institution to make business with a gambling site, so why going further than the law ?
is that not enough that the legislators reduce individual freedom ?
multi billions corporations are helping too?
who the **** rules that world, damn it?
you collaborationists

A part of the domain name use agreement Stars signed with the DOJ to get Pokerstars.com back prohibited anyone playing from US soil at all. It's not a UIGEA thing.

So I'm a pokerstars.fr player. Does that mean I can play from the US?

I don't know exactly how Pokerstars and Pokerstars.fr tie into each other in a technical legal/business sense but even if there was no explicit legal requirement on Stars.fr regarding US players you can be 100% sure that it's against Stars.fr policy to allow it.

edit: Yup. 7.7: http://www.pokerstars.fr/en/poker/room/terms/

Having my Stars account suspended didn't get my Stars.fr account suspended though. But they definitely share staff since when I emailed in about a pending withdrawal I once got a reply referring to a Stars.fr withdrawal.

The way they tell if you are using a VPN means you should be safe imo.

Pretty ****ty situation. LOL @ foreigners not being able to play whilst on holiday in the US. So sick.

I find it amazing that with all the recent events of accounts being frozen following BF and the ongoing problems of getting funds back from FTP that players are STILL taking risks with their online funds !

Whether we agree or not with the rules, you can't get away from the fact that those rules exist atm and trying to get around those rules is obviously not without risk.

Do some people just never learn ?!