Would you explain the rationale for this please? To me (and I suspect most people) two aspects of the size of punishment seem bizarre:

(1) It bears no relationship to the scale of the offence (no proportionality);

(2) It is effectively random (ie depends on the size of the balance at that particular time).

Its like saying the punishment for theft, whether its a bank hoist or a Snickers bar, is confiscation of the amount you happened to have in your bank account that day.

I would understand if it was something like (a) 3x the profits won while in the US or (b) profits + 1bb/100 hands etc.

Your method would seem to punish the innocent (of intent) harder than the guilty as those who played inadvertently wouldn't think to reduce their balance whilst premeditated cheaters will minimise their balance.

Its not that this effects me but I'm just scratching my head to understand how anyone can consider this represents any kind of fairness principle. Why is there no proportionality in your approach?

Just to give you guys a quick update…. PokerStars Chris was able to escalate my case up to a gentlemen in PokerStars Security Management. He contacted me this morning via email to let me know he is reviewing my case and should get back to me in 12-24 hours…. hoping to hear back from him soon….thanks for all your input.

GL dan. hope the $$$ hits your account 2morow.

SantaCruz that's a good point. IMO its naive to assume that Stars donates seized bankrolls to charity out of an institutional urge to combat underage/problem gambling. if they weren't using seized money to improve their bottom line be4 the takeover i'm sure they will be soon.

also in4 "good decision Stars, i know you never make mistakes!" after a Stars rep comes in and announces they reversed their mistake, and are returning $5,000 they tried to steal from a player.

How do you let him keep the account and redeposit? I understand closing account and funds if broke tos but I don't understand seizing funds and keeping account open for redeposit. Can you please explain that?

Is anyone else wondering if Stars is legally able to seize (or even freeze) funds in these circumstances? I think Stars should be seeking legal advice before making these decisions. Stars' TOS and "default policy" might need some revision imo.

EDIT: Just saw SantaCruz's post now. +1 to what he said.

This, at the very least, Stars should prove OP played more than one session or was deliberately VPNing before confiscating bankrolls... yet allowing the player to redeposit? That's just baffling, surely a ban has to come well before funds confiscation, beyond any funds won while on US soil

The resolution as it stands is utterly unacceptable and borders on outright theft. Look at my history and you'll see i'm one of the biggest Stars fanboys to post here. This situation is not like the others that get posted here, assuming OP is on the level, and Stars has said nothing to dispute that. Keep us posted, OP.

If Dan had not been directed to 2+2, this case would already have been closed. How do you empty a player's account in one breath, then invite him to redeposit in the next? This should be a frightening wake up for anyone with significant amounts of cash on stars, you are one mistake, real or imagined from donating to uhhhh 'charity'.

This is a good reminder for everyone. Do not leave any more bankroll on a site than you absolutely have to.

You have no protection. Seriously, they can seize your money for any reason they see fit.

I think this is a good idea. The new 2.5% fee for deposits/withdrawals makes it more and more difficult however.

Stars' policy here is not a thoughtful one at all. For one, of course if the OPs story is even remotely true, the notion of just taking all his money is ludicrous. But even in the other situation the policy makes no sense. So if two people decide to VPN in the US and one has a million dollar roll and the other has a 10k roll, the punishment is 100x more severe to the first person simply because he keeps more money on the site when that should have nothing to do with the scope of the punishment.

Just have a genuine and real policy that can consistently be applied but still takes into account all circumstances to make a reasonable judgement.

This isn't 100% true. You can't just write unreasonable terms (esp penalties) into a long T&C and expect them to be enforceable. Consider what the world would be like if that was allowed. If I had $100k in my a/c and they seized it in circumstances like this (one-off oversight on a trip to the US without taking any measures to circumvent the restrictions) then my lawyers would be taking it to the courts in IoM.

Although it may think it is an all-powerful monopoly, PS is not a government agency, its just a private entity and doesn't have rights to seize funds on an unreasonable basis. Don't assume that anything they choose to write in the T&C is gospel.

but realistically if a player has less than $xx,000 seized their only recourse is posting their issue on a forum like this, b/ it wouldn't be worth the $$$ it would cost to file suit.

which is why fellow poker players should be skeptical when a site (even the biggest site) seizes a player's bankroll. which is why i get so tilted seeing so many people reflexively defend PokerStars in these types of threads.

That mob are a joke man

How can you sieze someones entire roll and then say, 'oh, but you more than welcome to deposit again and carry on playin'.

Punishment in no way fits the crime and it's quite scary how scummy Pokerstars are becoming, their customer service team used to be solid.

If even PS had absolute irrefutable proof and a signed confession and video admission by OP, stealing funds from a player for this type of offense is utterly unacceptable. They can of course refuse to do future business with the op if they wish, that is their right. But they should not have any rights whatsoever to use the money their clients entrust to them for any purpose. Maybe it's a sign of worse things to come.

If Pokerstars is willing to sacrifice a lot of user trust over $5k, that is pretty worrying. It's a sign of desperation. Maybe Amaya is having liquidity problems. I hope I'm wrong but I find it worrying.

There needs to be consequences in place for people who flaunt the rules though.
If a bot ring gets caught should they get their money back?

edit: fwiw I'm not saying that stars are correct in this situation.

This offense is much worse as the perpetrators are stealing from other players, which is basically a criminal offense in many areas. If you go to a casino in las vegas and cheat at the poker table and get caught the consequences will be severe. Invariably the player will also be banned. There is a huge difference.

This is probably the most stupid (but also most funny) comment I will read this week.

This. Not 100% of all players know that it's not allowe to play in the US on stars, which is why the software tells you so. But when the mobile app doesn't do this, it's a big difference. Someone could even use the app in a plane while flying over US-territory "oops, we stole your funds"..



But great how PS can confiscate 5k$ of funds. What do we learn here? If you ever VPN in the US, cash out after every win/session.


Really considering cutting my PS volume big time if this turns out to be PS doing wrong

The sad thing is Stars is the judge jury and executioner. These gaming commissions are all set up to take care of the sites best interest as they are the ones paying their salaries. I never trusted Stars with my BR because they were licensed by the IOM gaming authority. I trusted them with my BR because of who the owners were and the employees that work for them.

PStars needs to be more to be more transparent about their deal with the DOJ.Is the punishment a DOJ mandate? If it is does it apply to non US citizens? Or is PStars just winging it.If so appeal and mitigation is called for.

P.S. Nobody is buying the play money nonsense.Also are D Neg and other US based players living outside the country or flying back and forth when they want to play online?

is an appeal to the uk gaming commision an idea in this situation where punishment is out of proportion to the offence.

a final report on what happened here would be important. for the community at large.
I think deterrence is always significant and the punishment should always make it a negative equity bet.

eg if the rules say do X and you lose your winnings plus 3bb per 100 hands played but you estimate the chances of getting caught in any given day to be say 0.001% and your making $100 a day and getting money out often the punishment of losing more then your winnings that session would not be an effective deterrent. However if the math showed relative to the risk your taking your actually losing money by trying to play and break the rules then that is effective.

This does seem way out of proportion though.

I would be curious to see the outcome of this.

I doubt that the DOJ has anything to do with PokerStars any longer. One of the main reasons that PokerStars sold itself to Amaya was so that PokerStars could clean its record and expand itself back into the regulated US markets. I would bet that Amaya/PokerStars could offer poker in the US again tomorrow as an unregulated site without any repercussions from breaking its agreements with the DOJ, if it wanted. Obviously reentering the US like that, though, would be a pretty terrible idea.

Bumping for updates, we need a resolution here. This is a serious issue.