Stars thinks/knows you did something, but they cant prove it. GG OP stars is done with you, Gl at finding a new site. You should feel lucky they let you keep your balance. They couldve just as easily closed your account and kept your balance.

If complaint goes to LGA = 0% chance of success (it's a miracle if you even get a reply)

If complaint goes to IOMGC > 0% chance of success (still very, very, very slim chance)

You can continue picking their e-mails apart OP, but if I were you I'd push hard for this case to go through IOMGC

One of these gaming licenses better provide OP with an explanation. Without it any website at anytime can close down a players account with no explanation and all 'winning players' from unsavory sites would likely exercise this right. After OP gets an explanation we can go from there.

IOM MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING (ONLINE GAMBLING) CODE 2013

http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/gambling/...financing1.pdf

Risk assessment

If in accordance with the risk assessment, a licence holder determines that a participant or business participant poses a higher risk, the licence holder must comply with paragraph 10 (enhanced due diligence)

Matters that pose a higher risk include but are not restricted to a participant or business participant who is or has a substantial connection with
—
(a) a politically exposed person;
(b) a person, legal person or legal arrangement resident or located in
a country that the licence holder has reason to believe does not apply, or insufficiently applies, the FATF Recommendations; or
(c) a person, legal person or legal arrangement that is the subject of any notices or warnings issued from time to time by the Isle of Man G ambling Supervision Commission

"politically exposed person" means any of the following resident in a country or territory outside the Island <listed in the link above>

any of the following family members of a person mentioned in sub-paragraph (a)
—
a spouse;
a partner considered by national law as equivalent to a spouse;
a child;
the spouse or partner of a child;
a sibling;
a parent;
a parent-in-law;
a grandparent; or
a grandchild
any close associate of a person mentioned

So, if I am reading this correctly, a player would be "higher risk" if they were the grandchild or "close associate" of a "senior member of an administrative, management or supervisory body of a State-owned enterprise".

That is somewhat surprising to me.

This is starting to seem more like a conspiracy against OP the more I read. The circumstances surrounding his ban seem rather far fetched compared to the run-of-the-mill bannings we see around here.

OP, I suggest you take a good long look at yourself here. You don't have to answer this publicly, of course, but you really need to think hard. Is there anyone that you know in your life that might be out to undermine you? Are you on any specific persons' bad side in the poker community? Have you bumhunted anyone from Russia (That was the country they were from, right?) more predominantly than others?

The fact that Stars can't talk is highly damning. The people who got you banned clearly are involved with a bad outfit, and they clearly had it out for you. Maybe it is best for you to take a step back from poker entirely for a while, that or go to another site with an entirely different identity, because if these people involved here are of criminal origin (which seems pretty apparent to me), then the last thing you need is to get caught up with potentially laundered money being filtered through you. Perhaps I am being overly-paranoid here, but these are things you have to consider. I wish you the best, and I am on your side here. I think that the precedent Stars is setting here is a very, very bad sign for the poker community as a whole, and if this comes to a head as any kind of poor judgement by Stars, then the company with vast control of the market share is going to face tons of scrutiny, and public faith in online poker will end up lower than ever.

One one hand OP, you are getting boned out of a career. On the other hand, if you keep pushing this you may end up being a revolutionary of sorts.

Good luck.

This is great.

Some people have posted pure hate here. Remember it could be you getting banned at some point. With this specific case pokerstars cannot say somethings they would like for legal reasons. OJ simpson got not guilty of murder in a criminal court then found guilty in a civil case. If a player has done wrong then they should be happy to keep the money and when they play on their new account don't do the same again! Unfortunately pokerstars cannot ban any player no matter what they have done wrong. Simply live somewhere else and play an account in someone elses name. Absolutely nothing pokerstars can do other than temporarily inconvenience a player. So OP just move on and make your new account and play from different IP and don't do whatever you done on the new account!

This seems like great advice.

I cant see what could go wrong.

Here I figured OP would just play on other sites and keep crushing, but cheating his way back onto PS and risking his entire bankroll because he isnt a cheater seems much wiser.

if you can make it work elsewhere sure, but some people on stars have databases they have spent years building up! if you had an account in someone elses name from a different ip address there is no way pokerstars could know unless it was from say a couple of streets away and then they could not prove it due to burden of proof and would simply at worst freeze account and return funds.

Real life and online are so different, it isnt like when people scammed casinos and went back in with fake moustaches and wigs and hats! Also obviously you woudnt stick all your roll in! I don't get why some people have so much more in poker account than they actually need to have. Money is safer in the bank (unless you have a greek bank account)

bumbperdibumb.

if they confiscated his funds, they would have to give a reason.

Been skiing untill today, getting to filing my appeal in a few days, wil keep thread updated.

Filed my appeal, almost the exact way I posted here before. Got a quick reply from IOMGSC:

So, lets see where this leads.

Op: it likely has to do with money laundering. I had a weird experience in the usa while cashing out. I had been here many times before and cashed out more in the past. It was mot a tax issue as I already had that covered. They totally stone walled me when I asked any questions. At a different casino I talked to a floorman I am friends with and he mentioned it was probably a money laundering thing. I asked for more information but he said he really wasnt even supposed to be talking about it in the first place.

Other guys should realize that 6 guys sat op which arroused suspicion from stars. That doesnt mean these were the only 6 guys they were looking at. I agree thst .1^6 would be pretty damning but there could have been way more. Suddenly the probability might not seem so extreme. Maybe stars concluded from all the numbers they had that op was just 10% likely to be involed... and didnt want to take even that risk.

Everyone accusing op with virtually no information should really shut up. You are just kicking a guy when he is down. Also, most people crying about him being a bum hunter should shut up - almost all players game select, there is seriously a very small group that doesn't (who are profitable anyway). You just try to protect your ego by putting others down. Pathetic people in this world.

I don't think there's 0 information. There are 6 accounts that are linked somehow, all playing near 100% of their volume vs 1 player. As well, when OP defends himself, he frequently invokes his reputation. Invoking your reputation is a sign of dishonesty, but not a guarantee. According to the book, spie the lie by Susan Carnicero, Philip Houston, Don Tennant, and Michael Floyd.
When we add both OP's behavior, and, the small probability of these 6 accounts being linked, only played 1 account, and that OP claiming that he has nothing to do with those accounts, I think these is a pretty unlikely claim.
I think this is actually VERY far from "virtually no information". OP is right, it's not "evidence" but stars seemed to think it was sufficient for them to make the decision to refuse his business.

I am quoting this from another thread that OP created titled "lifetime bumhunting pays off period"
"Stars is actually the only site I don't play on." post #31
I think this is an additional point against OP, when he could have easily considered stars to be such a low value site that it was worth risking getting banned for skimming some sort of bonus scheme.

Isnt it your job as a professional player to bumhunt? I mean when im at the casino and I see a fishy player, I sit to his left if possible, is that bumhunting? Now grimming on the other
hand, is just scummy as hell and you should never be allowed to play ever again if you do that IMO

This has been covered many times, have you read the thread?

Small update. So Stars told me to go to the IOMGC, right? And after I questioned this, they told me this:

So I did, and they replied with:

So I was like, great. Lets try to get this sorted out, get my account back or at least let them provide me a reason as to why I was being banned.

Shortly after, the IOMGC sent me this:

So this COMPLETELY contradicts what Pokerstars told me, and ASSURED me to be the truth in their last email. I forwarded that last email to the IOMGC, after which they replied:

How ****ed up is this? Stars tells me I should appeal to the IOMGC and then tells the IOMGC that they can't take up my complaint? It's really shocking how a large company like Pokerstars handles this and seems to be either totally clueless about their own licenses, or basically outright lies to me.

The only people at PokerStars with a clue are their security team. Pretty much everyone else is stuck using cookie cutter responses. As you can see, the original email directing you who to contact is not from security. Furthermore, I believe Pokerstars.com and Pokerstars.eu have different support emails. I'm assuming you're emailing the Pokerstars.com support email so, as far as they know, the information they are giving you is correct. You need to contact them @ the .eu support emails to be certain you're getting the correct information regarding your account status.

Pokerstars told you your pokerstars.eu account is under LGA Malta. Then they told you again that your pokerstars.edu account is under LGA Malta. Then IOMGC told you that you need to talk to LGA Malta about your pokerstars.eu account. Then they told you again that you need to talk to LGA Malta about your pokerstars.eu account.

IOMGC regulates the company. Doesn't have anything to do with your account, and the closure of it. If you want to talk about your account being banned/unbanned, then you need to talk to LGA Malta. If you have a problem with the company, you talk to IOMGC.
Where have they contradicted themselves?

Appeal to IOMGC about your full tilt account and the other regulator about the other account.. Or am I missing something here?

looooooooooooooool

That's the worst part of their support. By far!

LGA aren't those the people that licensed minted poker?

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