Ok, so you would have had your normal Canadian IP address provided by rogers as per usual. It looks like you were using a VPN to stars as what most likely, imo, set the trigger off was you using the hotel wifi to try to log in and play after your mobile session. They know u cannot travel from Canada to Florida in that short a time, so then since you confirm you were using your account from Florida they know that you were also playing from there, even with a Canadian IP

Maybe the only geo-location that stars use is by IP address, so there was no way they could have known you were in the USA when playing. Also you were deceiving them by masking your log in "from" Canada, albeit probably unintentionally by you

Bit harsh to seize the whole BR here imo, especially you could feign ignorance of any issue with playing from the USA and only realised there is an issue when you tried from the hotel wifi

What is your Stars SN?

I don't know why you keep asking for his PokerStars SN. I think that players give out their usernames way too freely. A screenname and an IP adress is all it takes for someone to get cheated.

Regardless of what set off the playing in the US trigger seizing 5k and then saying it's ok to continue playing doesn't sit well with me.

Thx to Pstars Chris for taking the time to look into this despite it not being your department.

Well it's mostly to verify his story. If the events occurred the way OP claims, he's being hard done by, but if he's lying and he was VPNing to play professionally from the U.S or whatever then he'd have no case. I'm not saying thats the case here thats just why we ask for more details because people have lied in threads here regularly in the past (plenty of people have also been telling the truth)

Also @ sect7g I agree, and thanks to PSChris for looking into it. As someone who's going to the WSOP next year i'd sure hope that Stars is properly blocked in the U.S incase I forget where I am and log in on autopilot one day, don't receive a warning message and suddenly end up banned with funds confiscated (obviously anyone VPNing to get around the block needs to be punished, but you shouldn't be able to join a real money game from the U.S from a U.S IP address in any of the stars clients, desktop mobile or otherwise)

this, along with him being brand new to 2+2


this is currently the case

I don't buy the "I accidentally played for real money" thing. Still completely ridiculous if everything else is true.

OP you don't need to give out any more personal information.

Stars said "we are taking your $5,000, but your'e welcome to redeposit when you get back to Canada!" that's all every1 needs to know. that's outright theft.

I think a VPNing pro living in the US would be pretty unlikely to log onto his phone and mess around at 25nl zoom.
Seems much more likely that OP is telling the truth than that a pro that sophisticated would make that mistake, be lucky enough to be allowed to keep his acc, and still come to 2+2 to try to draw more attention to his case.

IMO the most likely lie is that he forgot he wasn't supposed to play on stars in florida and just logged on to play 25nl for fun.

US players can still log on to PokerStars and play at the play tables. As a matter of fact, PokerStars recently sent me an email trying to sell me play money.

+1

I wasn't deceiving or masking anything, and I don't care how they determine my location… thats their problem. I logged into the app from my iPhone and played without being stopped.

It is definitely not.


Maybe I have sucked at reading the last few minutes, but can someone tell me what happened? Did Stars confiscate the whole $5K on deposit or just the $20 won that day?

PokerStars confiscated the entire 5k and they said that they are giving it to gambling charities. The 5k was money won over the course of a couple of years at low stakes games.

Somehow if you were a losing player and kept reloading, PS would let you slide. I wonder why that is.

PS says that they are giving the money to charities. I say that Izabel Goulart is my new girlfriend. You can trust both of us.

If what the OP'er said is true (and thus far he has actually seemed much more believable than most with these threads IMO), then that is ridiculous. Confiscating the $20 is even a little blah, but that should be let go. Not the $5K though. That is a wrong decision. Very wrong actually (again assuming OP'er told the truth and the complete truth).

I really hope that's not the whole story. Otherwise that would be absolutely devastating. GG Amaya!

i really hope im reading ^ that wrong. you're not saying you hope OP is lying, and that you hope PS has a reason to take is money, are you?

Are you done with the pointless trolling for today?

OP shouldn't be allowed to redeposit based on the above argument. Lets say op was using vpn or alternate means. Stars made the decision to confiscate 5k but allow him to redeposit. How does that make any sense either way?

But you were masking/deceiving, you were using a Canadian IP address to play from the USA. Again, it may have been unintentional but you still did it.

I am also not sure how you thought you were playing play $$. Did you really think you were playing 0.10/0.25 play chip?

is their a reason why you are not posting your PokerStars SN?

Cliffs:
OP "accidentally" played while in the US.
Pokerstars "accidentally" seized $5000 from his account, but won't reveal if it's been returned.

How about making clear exactly what your company policy is, for the benefit of everyone else? Transparency is important.

Please clarify. If someone somehow plays a real money hand on Pokerstars while located in the US, is it company policy to seize their entire bankroll?
A yes or no answer should suffice.

Obv wrong if Stars took his whole roll (in the past people have posted they they've had their US-based/VPN winnings only confiscated) BUT these OPs often mislead or leave out important info. How many players with $5k in their account are likely to log on to grind at play money tables(!?), yet alone mistakenly sit at real money tables?

Someone who has grinded his entire roll for years to get to that point would. OP seems to have good BR management and seems disciplined. Appears to me that it was an honest mistake. He likely just wanted to play a little poker, in between doing touristy stuff, and tried to play play money. That's not out of the realm of reality. Especially since he sated his wife was with him, and if she is like mine, would have gotten upset that I was playing poker of vacation. With play money, he didn't have to worry about quitting at a moments notice.