Letter 1:

Dear bangwhiz,

We were recently informed by one of our check providers that their bank
account has been frozen. As a result, the following check cannot be
cashed or deposited at this time:

Transaction ID: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Amount: $100.00
Mailed date: "March31, 2009"

We are in communication with the provider to establish the exact
circumstances, and find an immediate solution. We appreciate your
patience in the meantime and will provide a further update by end of day
Monday.

Please accept our sincerest apologies for any disruption this has caused
you.

Best Regards,

Eduardo
PokerStars Payments Department

Letter 2:

Hello bangwhiz,

This email is to notify you that the following cashout via Cheque Issued was returned.

Cashout request time: 2009/03/31
Cashout amount: $100.00
Cheque Issued cashout transaction ID: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

The amount of $100.00 has been credited back to your PokerStars account balance. If you have any further questions regarding this transaction, please contact "PokerStars Cashier" <cashier1@pokerstars.com>.

Best regards,

PokerStars Payments Team

Mass Mail I guess:

Dear bangwhiz,

We were recently informed by one of our check providers that their bank
account has been frozen. As a result, the following check cannot be
cashed or deposited at this time:

Transaction ID: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Amount: $100.00
Mailed date: "March31, 2009"

We are in communication with the provider to establish the exact
circumstances, and find an immediate solution. We appreciate your
patience in the meantime and will provide a further update by end of day
Monday.

Please accept our sincerest apologies for any disruption this has caused
you.

Best Regards,

Eduardo
PokerStars Payments Department

Final email:

Dear bangwhiz,

Following our previous communication, we regret to inform you that our check provider's bank account remains frozen, the funds are not accessible, and it's not known when the funds will be released. The provider's legal team and the Poker Players Association (PPA) are working on this matter.

In order to make the funds available to you without further delay, we have credited your PokerStars account with the outstanding check amount (details below) from our own funds. We have also credited your account with an additional 10% bonus as a good will gesture for the disruption this matter has caused.

Transaction ID:xxxxxxxxxxx
Amount:$100.00
Check #:851097
Mailed date:31-Mar-09

If you wish to resubmit your cashout request, you can do so from our Cashier by selecting the check option (your new check will be issued on a different account and can be deposited as normal) or wire transfer (only available for amounts greater than [$2,500]).

Once again, please accept our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience.

Best Regards,

PokerStars Payments Department


I never deposited the check, so it did not bounce. The ATM I went to to deposit the check was out of order thank god.

None of this is good, it should, however, serve as a good wake up call and hopefully get the ball rolling on some sort of litigation.

Worst case scenario, PS and FT pull out and us pros will have to setup foreign bank accounts + get new IP' etc. We'll still be able to play from the US. This is obviously not the optimal outcome.

Awesome. So that $30 million seized from a paper check processor, what do they do then? I'm sure all US sites will just stick it out like Party did.

Very well said, although an adverse Wire Act ruling would be problematic although sites could still choose to operate. Great post.

Right, because Obama fired various U.S. attorneys and replaced them with loyal political cronies. Oh wait no -- that was the last guy.

I doubt the SDNY's attorney runs every thing he does by the A.G., let alone the Prez. Traditionally they have a lot of independence which is why what Bush and Gonzales did was such a big deal.

LOL, yeah, that's all you'll have to do. Hmmm... what about residence? Are you going to rent a house that indicates you are living in said foreign country when Stars asks for ID and utility?

The government is "ALL-IN" on this issue and they are not going to fold before the showdown. This is going to go on for a long time, leaving a cloud of uncertainty over the top of all us, both the players and the sites, for months on end.

I don't know how it is going to turn out in the end, but there is not going to be any quick resolution.

Yes, there will be a way to circumvent the system. Will it be worth it for most people? Probably not. For those that are making significant money, there will be a way.

FWIW, Americans play on Party Poker, so I know it's possible.

They settled instead of losing a judgment IIRC.

Its not a forgone conclusion sites are leaving the US IMO. There are ways to process payments without leaving so much money in the United States (not without cost of course).

That said, obviously a bad day for poker and its not going to help the games at all LDO

Well, they need to start cutting ALL checks from Canada, unfortunately. I've never had a problem with Stars checks from Canada, but I suspect other people may.

Yeah, because they're too dumb to put money in.

Why should we not be concerned that the DOJ or Treasury or whomever instigated this just won't keep doing it again? I'm assuming these checks have to have some US presence right? Otherwise why would they ever have used US accounts ? (Seriously could use some clarification from someone who knows how the poker site / payment processor relationship has to work.) So if that's the case it's a pretty trivial matter for the Tresury to keep sniffing out the new check processors. And getting 8 figures seized is a pretty strong deterrent to anyone.

lol, why do I think that many foreign pros are rooting for us to fail. They'll most likely be better off.

Also, what's to stop the sites from using Canadian processors or overseas processors? Sure, it'll take longer, but it'll still be a viable way to cash out. Panic is unwarranted imo.

I know you can buy chips with International Money Orders. Why can't they just pay us with the same? Presume they would just be to expensive I guess.

Secondly, they may want to keep the us players, but get out of processing payments in the US. I would think they could do that, but I don't know enough about international payment mechanisms to intelligently speculate what form that would be in, what the negatives would be, or at what kind of cost. I would think they've already developed plan A, B, C, etc long ago and it's sitting in a spreadsheet somewhere.

get used to it... liberty for the average joe is not part of obama's agenda

There are ways, its just a cost-benefit thing. If you start having to charge players money to withdraw and it takes a long time to get people there money and there's no easy way for money to come onto the site etc, etc at some point its just not worth it to serve the player base, especially given the legal risk.

But, its a good thing to keep in mind in terms of the safety of the money on the poker sites. Unless they are dumb enough to leave a large enough amount of cash in the US so that if its seized they go under, and I doubt the major sites are that dumb, they'll be able to pay you out in the worst case where they leave the market.

I worked pretty hard to play a decent game of holdem at least semi-professionally and as this mess evolved I began to think about the rest of the world, in terms of a player base for the online casinos. Wonder what the percentage of total rake is for US players, versus same calculation for the rest of the world? I wonder how much they need as at this point? Particularly after u subtract 30 mil or whatever the seizer was from the gross profits.

Check out the poker traffic sites, you can see that it still makes a pretty big difference. The $30MM is meaningful, but we're still talking a couple of weeks profit, best guess. The precedent and effects on the business model are much more troubling than the $30MM itself, sounds like a bigger number than it is (not that its meaningless)

Well, we certainly didn't need this impact because a lot of casual and recreational players are probably gonna play until they run out of chips and just bag it. They don't need this grief. I agree, the 30 Mil was just the tip of the iceberg. Probably all the business model data was based upon the past - not sure those numbers are worth a nickel now.

Its not even a given that the $30MM is the tip of the iceberg. The $30MM isnt gone yet, its frozen.

wtf, do you work for the New York Attorney General or something?

yes, and probably very hard.

not sure if this was asked before but should i be concerned one bit that my bank account contains funds drawn from the processor's account? i use the same bank (W.F) where the account was that got screwed.

my coffee ended up on the screen when reading this , cheers mate lol





i reckon the 30 million seizure is a test run , for backlash , legal standings , how much of a fight they are going to get

if no one stands up against this or fights it , i think you will see this in a bigger scale


america and australia , where you can pretend to be free lol

time to put on a canadian or english accent me thinks , i do believe england is the place to be if you would like to gamble


gl to you yanks , hope something good comes of this