The PPA Wants to Know How This Impacts You -- Post Your Story in This Thread!

[PPAdc]

Players --

These are undoubtedly difficult times for the poker community. Whether you are full time grinder or a recreational player we have all been adversely affected by the DoJ’s actions that have effectively shut down our game. Rest assured that the PPA is doing all we can to lessen the impact of all this and while change won’t happen immediately we are on the case. Tomorrow, all PPA members will be getting an email letting them know what they can do to fight back. Next week will be very important for us to get our message and frustrations heard.

Starting today, the PPA would like to begin cataloging the stories of poker players who are affected by the DoJ prosecution. We are asking 2+2 forum members to post their stories in this thread. The media is already clamoring to learn about how this impacts Americans. We want to direct them to this thread and to other places so they can get a flavor of the good and honest Americans who have been trampled on by our government. Please post your story here.

Also, if you would be interested in serving as a player surrogate to speak to the media please email us at mypokerstory@theppa.org with your contact info. We may be able to use your story with targeted media.
Thanks for supporting this small effort to tell our story. Again, PPA members will be getting more info on ways to take action tomorrow!

Proud to play,

John A. Pappas
Executive Director, PPA

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Mod note:
This isn't a debate thread. This is a thread on personal stories. Anyone who wants to post their feelings concerning the merits of playing online poker for a living or of beliefs that online poker is somehow rigged needs to take those comments elsewhere.

[PPABryan]

Besides working for the PPA, and before I ever worked a day fighting for poker, I played poker. I learned to play on PartyPoker in 2001, and was able to supplement my scholarship in college with poker winnings. I was caught up in the Neteller meltdown, and had almost $8,000 frozen and thought gone. At 23, that might have well be a million bucks, I thought I would never recover. Now after April 15th 2011, I am sitting here just so bummed out. My hobby, my recreation, my place to vent out my frustrations through intense competition has been taken from me, not to mention a secondary income that I surely enjoyed. While I now have a similar amount of money caught up online, its no longer as dire to me financially as it was then. I will be ok. But I wont be happy about. Something I cared about was taken from me. I will not stop fighting until I get it back.

Bryan Spadaro
Spudd69/Spudd96
Poker Players Alliance

[AcidKnight]

I'm a 28 year old professional poker player. I have been playing professionally since August of 2008 after I quit my job as a structural engineer in Las Vegas - a job that it would be unlikely I'd still have today due to the economy in the US. The office where I worked now has seven people working there which is down from approximately 65 when I chose to leave in 2008.

I've been playing online poker for the last three years exclusively on Full Tilt Poker. I chose the site because of their reputation and because they did not offer any other types of casino games such as blackjack or Keno. I knew that poker is a game of skill and I knew of the UIGEA and I did not want to play on a site that offered games of chance that would increase the chances that the site would be prosecuted by the government.

I'm married and my wife and I were looking to move away from Las Vegas so that we could be closer to her family, help them out (family illness I'm not going to discuss) and also start a family of our own soon. Online poker provided me the opportunity to live wherever we wanted and still make a good income. It also provided us the freedom to have my wife work part time since I could work from home and provide a better life for the children we planned to have.

We found our dream house, put in an offer and are currently in escrow right now. It was really a perfect situation for us. Since I pay my taxes, online poker has given me the chance to prove to mortgage lenders that I'm the type of person that they want to lend money to, even in this horrible economy.

On April 15th, I found out that apparently our dreams are going to have to wait. The government decided that instead of regulating online poker and providing consumer safeguards, they were going to indict the owners of the sites and shut down online poker. I have dozens of friends who play for a living, pay taxes, support families and have done so for years because online poker was available to them. If my small cross section of friends has that many people who this was so devastating to, I cannot imagine how many more people across the country are in a similar spot.

Not only did they do so with no warning, but they did so right after all of us have just paid our taxes on our income which is derived from online poker. We have done everything that we are supposed to do and we are being punished. I personally have more than 50% of my net worth sitting on Full Tilt Poker because that's where it's supposed to be. My tax return lists my profession as "professional card player" and my bankroll is right where it needs to be, yet now I'm worried that the DOJ might decide to keep it.

They have made such a drastic change to the lives of thousands of honest and hard working Americans and we are suffering, despite committing no crime. They have taken the jobs of people for almost no reason at all, when the economy in our country is worse than it has been since the 1930's. It all seems so backwards.

Now because of the DOJ's actions, we will likely not be able to move. Our dream home will slip through our hands and back onto the market. My wife's family who needs our help will also have to wait. We are now stuck in Las Vegas because there are no jobs for me to get near my wife's family. We will also have to wait to start a family because we do not want to raise a child in Las Vegas. I know other people have far more dire situations than my own, but it is a pretty depressing time right now in our lives because of what our government has decided to do. I really wish that my hard earned money hadn't gone to paying taxes for a government that would do this to its people.

[zerosum79]

Over the last two years I have worked to build a profitable side business playing poker and teaching others how to play as well. Currently I derive a significant portion of my taxable income from playing and coaching. I pay my taxes. I am a good citizen.

I feel that in an economic climate where maximizing tax revenue is of the utmost importance, and finding a job is difficult, putting someone out of business, and making them unable to pay the taxes is backwards. I would happily have paid for the right to continue to operate my business. However the DOJ's actions in shutting down my right to play poker is completely contrary to my inalienable right to freedom that this country once represented.

I hope that I can continue to keep paying my mortgage. I hope that I can continue to buy my two year old daughter food. I hope that I can still spend money helping the health of the economy. I hope that the government restores my right to pursue a venture that is unquestionably skill based and legal. I find it hard to believe that the government condones gambling through the lottery which preys on the economically downtrodden and refuses to acknowledge that poker is not gambling, it is a skill game.

zerosum79

[TheTruthSpeaks]

edit- Ah looks like someone was trolling

[Skallagrim]

Thanks AcidKnight.

Stories like yours not only will be useful in the media, they are what motivates me to continue to fight on.

Skallagrim

[McNitterson]

I'd recommend mods get control of this thread and delete posts, hand out bans liberally or you aren't going to get all the stories you want.

[RazzSpazz]

Story:

I recently graduated with two B.S. degrees, one in Microbiology and one in Molecular Genetics. Currently looking for a full time job, but have been unsuccessful so far. I do work 15 hrs/wk part time, but the pay is poor and the job is not fun. I also have about 14k in government student loans that I must begin making payments on in September of this year.

I play online poker for extra income on the side, and typically make 3-4 times more per hour than I do at my part time job. The money made from online poker was going to go towards my monthly living expenses and student loans while searching for a full time job. After graduating, I've worked really hard on improving my game (finally have some free time!), and am positive I would have been able to pay off the entire balance of my student loans in one fell swoop - a personal goal of mine.


However, with the recent shenanigans by the DOJ I am unsure if I will ever get my 5,000$ of hard earned cash back that comprises my online bankroll. They have yet to make it clear what they will do with my money now that it has been seized. Their actions are preventing me from participating in my favorite hobby, earning money, challenging my brain with the math/logic/psychology inherent in this game, and socializing with other poker players from around the world.

If my employment situation does not improve soon, several months from now I will have but only a small paycheck coming in every other week to live off of, and the funds I currently have saved in my bank account will be gone.

Definitely not a tragic sob story, but it's still an unpleasant situation to be in.

Looking forward to hearing stories from other posters. Good idea for a thread.

[AcidKnight]

Originally Posted by Skallagrim

Thanks AcidKnight.

Stories like yours not only will be useful in the media, they are what motivates me to continue to fight on.

Skallagrim

Thanks.

Feel free to do whatever you'd like with it and if there's anything that I can do to be more helpful to the cause here, please don't hesitate to send me a PM.

[lilwhaldo]

I'm a 22 year old professional poker player. I turn 23 in July. I've played professionally for about a year now. I play nl 100 and 200 on full tilt. I started playing poker for money when I was 16 years old.

When I was younger I went to school and realized college wasn't for me. I did a lot of self exploring over the next couple of years and got into pretty rough times with drugs and a lot of other illegal activity. Luckily I didn't end up in prison, but I did end up in the hospital because of my problems. I was able to get sober from the hard stuff about two years ago and I haven't touched anything besides marijuana and alcohol since then.

My path as a professional poker player started when I went back to school yet again after becoming sober and again realized it wasn't for me. School and regular jobs are not suited for everybody. I am very independent and I don't do well taking orders from anybody. My plan for my future is not so much to be a professional poker player for the rest of my working career, but to raise capital to start investing in businesses, real estate, and the stock market. The best way to accomplish this end has been to play poker online.

Currently I am working on starting a record label, recording studio, and artist management company. With my income from online poker all of this would have been relatively easy to start up over the next 5-6 months. I had everything budgeted out so I could open up the studio/office at the end up September. This doesn't only effect me at this point. There are a few friends I have that live in the ghetto that this company could have helped get out of their circumstances. Not only that, but this business would help to stimulate the economy, so now it effects everybody.

Luckily I live in South Florida, so I can play live, but playing live 1-2 is like taking a 60-80% pay cut (I have no idea how much I'm going to make live but from my research in the past I think it's something like $15/hr at 1-2 or something like that). I told myself last year I'd never work for anybody else again and now I'm going to have to take a job very far from my home. I don't have a car because I haven't needed one working from home, and it didn't really make sense spending on a car I don't need when I have a business to save for.

[Phatty]

I'm 35 with a full time job and play poker part time as a fun hobby and supplemental income. I have around $10k on Stars and $5k on Full Tilt plus I have about $4k of FPP's I want to cash in on Stars and was planning on getting another $4k this year on bonuses and about $10k at the tables. So, I have $15k of liquid cash tied up. I have $4k of bonuses tied and about $14k of future earnings this year I can't make because of this.

Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper, but my only debt is my house and I hope to pay it off within the next few years and I still have may day job. I'm also hopeful I'll get my poker money eventually. I'm just really disappointed I can't apply my skills anymore and have to look to play more live now.

[cwik]

I am a 27 year old poker player. I have played professionally relying solely on my online poker income for the past 4 years. I’m married and we just bought a house in California six months ago. The DOJ’s actions have put a sudden halt to my ability to make a living and support my family. It’s possible we could lose our house and everything we own because of the DOJ’s decision. Nothing I ever did was illegal and I paid all of my taxes. In fact, because poor the timing of the indictments fell right after I paid a large portion of my liquid cash to taxes and most of my net worth is frozen online, I have been put in a very difficult position that will not be easy to resolve.

I pray that our federal government will realize the way they’ve treated online poker is unfair and backwards. As an American I like to think the freedoms I was thought this country stood for actually existed. The problem is not Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, but the system that was created from them to run in.

[AJB4]

I am in the minority of the pro poker player group in that I am middle age.

I am 44 years old and have been an online professional for 7 years now.

I have a wife and five (yes 5) children. Two are now adults and the other three live at home.

I quit a very solid job 7 years ago because I made more part time playing poker. Without getting into too many specifics I consistently make (and report) 6 figures to the IRS. If I were to return to the work force now it would be disastrous for my family. I would be forced to accept a 30-40K a year job if I could even find one after 7 idle years. I do have 15 years experience but being out of the loop for a long time has consequences. My wife has not worked since our 7 year old was born. She has experience as well but has also been idle for years. At our ages, we understand we are less desirable hires considering our absence for so long.

As a result of this, I am forced to consider leaving the country and either a) relocating my entire family or b) leaving them here and visiting when I can. Neither option is acceptable.

I do not have much money in the bank. As you can imagine with a family my size it isn't easy to set aside money. My expenses are extreme. In the absence of a resolution or alternate plan immediately, my life will change and change for the worse VERY quickly.

I am not located in a state where land-based casions exist so grinding live is not really a viable option either.

The bottom line is I have no good options....

I appreciate everything the PPA is doing for me and my family and hope my details can help in the understanding of the plight of many. I am not a young kid. I am not a degenerate. I am a father, a husband and a family man. I will do whatever is necessary to take care of my family. I just feel that I have the right to do whatever I please within a legal framework. That right has been taken away from me by the country I love.


AJ

[ganstaman]

I'm a 25 year old medical student who will be graduating this May before beginning my residency on July 1st, in NJ. I am in the process of signing papers to buy a condo, the mortgage for which I will barely be able to cover, especially with the massive amount of student loans I've racked up. I was planning on playing poker on PokerStars during the month of June. While I am just a recreational player that plays small stakes and does not have much money online, earning an extra several hundred dollars would have made it much easier to manage in the beginning.

I know I don't have the saddest or most exciting story, but I wanted to show that many types of people are being affected here. I sometimes rely on online poker to keep me sane amidst the hard working hours I put in. Especially to be in a state that came so close to opening its own online casinos, it is extremely frustrating to be blocked like this.

[McNitterson]

I am 37 years old and have been playing online since the Party Poker days. I quit a good job at an insurance company in 2007 to play full time. Since that time this is what I have done with income generated from poker:

- Paid 10's of thousands of dollars in taxes.
- Purchased a home.
- Opened an online clothing business that has a full time employee.

This is what those things look like without online poker:

- Pay very little in taxes.
- Lose my home.
- Lay off my employee and most likely sell off my business.

Even though it isn't surprising this day was coming, the manner and the swiftness with no warning is surprising and saddening. The fact that players had no warning or time to cash out the money we have on these sites and make alternate plans, makes me really angry. None of us have any idea when we will be seeing that money to even begin putting our lives back together.

What do I tell my employee? What do I tell the people I stake? With a big chunk of my net worth online, I have no clue how much money I will have 2 months, 6 months, 1 year from now. How do I make uninformed decisions that not only affect me but so many others? The fact that the country I love has put me into this spot and has put so many other of my friends into even worse spots, makes me sad. Just really sad.