The regs say that if banks feel the best or cheapest way to prevent the "unlawful gambling" transactions, which no one in government will define, is to simply not process transactions for any gambling businesses, that is acceptable. There is no penalty for blocking lawful transactions.

I found this a little reassuring.
http://www.compatiblepoker.com/final-uigea.cms.htm

A few articles for your reading enjoyment
http://luckynumbers.kansascity.com/?q=node/396
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/1...igea-rules.htm
http://www.topix.net/content/prweb/2...ea-regulations
http://spaces.covers.com/blog/Freedo...-late.html?t=0

Enjoy, but seriously I feel fairly confident that this rediculous regulation will be canceled by the next administration. Dem house and congress and dem prez who happens to play poker himself BTW from what I read. Also there is still 12 1/2 months before this has to be implemented... plenty of time to reverse this idiot money wasting regulation.

We can smoke and drink ourselves to death but we can't play poker in our homes hurting no one. Give me a F@$&ing break.

I agree. Most of the people (who aren't screaming THE SKY HAS FALLEN!) on these forums are rather confident this will get fixed early into Obama's tenure, with Barney Frank leading the charge I can believe it. Most of this is premature panic, nothing more. We need to calm down and stop scaring everyone before casual readers of 2+2 start yanking their money out.

Yea. It's worked great so far. PPA is a joke.

Wow this is ignorant.

no it isnt.
blindly supporting anything that stands for the same cause as you is -- edit

1p0kerboy - I don't know if it's that ignorant to wonder out loud about the PPA's abilities and effectiveness. I don't know much about other lobbying groups similar to them but I'm not exactly impressed by the PPA's awesomeness and I don't honestly know how successful they would be if they had 10x the money or memberships they have now.


winky51 - I don't know about Congress overturning it because being the people that 'allows that horrible internet gambling' stuff is not exactly the greatest publicity in the world. But it's possible I suppose. I disagree with your last line though. We CAN play internet poker in our homes. There is nothing illegal about it (except in certain states I guess). The government is not stopping you from doing that and thankfully fell way short of something so drastic. They are only making it more difficult for you to get your money back and forth to the sites (note - 'more difficult' is not the same as 'impossible' 'you are not allowed to play').

That's the part that bugs me. People keep complaining about, "OMG. The Government is so stupid because they won't even let you play poker from home." Ummm, yes they will. There are some who don't seem to be too happy about it and would choose to stop you if they could because they're dumb hypocrites. But they have not stopped you from being allowed to play at home.

Why would you assume that I am blindly supporting them?

He's not 'wondering out loud'. He's implying that they've done nothing so far and goes on to say that the organization is a 'joke'.

I happen to know differently, and anybody who is interested in researching a little bit will come to see that the PPA, while maybe not our saving grace, has been very effective especially in the past year or so.

I know most of you guys don't really follow this stuff, and you just see the regulations come out and assume that PPA didn't to anything to prevent that.

The PPA was key behind getting legislation introduce over the past two years that support online poker. These bills will be re-introduced next year, and with our now favorable Congressional landscape, it shouldn't be hard to get one passed.

The PPA is actively lobbying the Obama Administration to include the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) into the batch of last-minute Bush laws that will be tossed out via the Congressional Review Act. There was just an action alert yesterday to encourage members to write and call the Obama Administration on this issue.

If the above is unsuccessful, the PPA plans on litigating the UIGEA on several grounds.

I assume that you guys haven't done much if anything at all. And yet you sit there pointing your fingers at those who are really trying to make a difference.

Shame on you.

Very good article. The way I see it, the games will get a little bit tougher because debit cards will no longer be accepted, which will deny an easy avenue of entry for a casual player.

Micro Bob has correctly nailed it.

You can play all the poker you want. Nobody is going to come breaking down your door (even in Washington State). The achilles heel of online poker is the money handling, that is, easy depositing and easy and reliable withdrawing. Solve that and you are home free. Poker boom II will be under way.

Tuff

Im not , but im sure lots of poker players do

If we lose this fight and the Government does finally shut down US online poker, it wont be because of the PPA. It will be because poker players did not actively support the PPA.

If you dont think the PPA can win the fight, first off you are wrong, and second, why havent you tried to form a competing, better organization?

You dont really think posting on a message board how the government shouldnt be messing with your ability to play does any good, do you?

The fight the PPA has been waging over the last year and a half is the MAIN reason that the UIGEA regs took so long, and a good part of the reason they are not as bad as they could have been.

Which isnt to say they are not bad, they are. While many have noted the 2 good things in the regs (the cashout exemption, and the lack of direct monitoring of non-CC transactions) you only have to look a little deeper to find some real cause for concern: the "actual knowledge" provisions.

When banks or other money transfer services get notice of an "actual" unlawful transaction they must, according to the regs, take steps to prevent them in the future. These steps generally involve cutting off service to whatever customer is engaged in the unlawful transaction. If the bank has actual knowledge you are depositing to unlawful internet gambling (UIG) sites, it must get you to stop or close your account. If a bank has direct knowledge that eChecks to "xyz" company are for UIG, it must close xyz's account. If thats through a foreign bank, it must take steps to stop the foreign bank from letting transactions go to "xyz." In other words, a real "actual knowledge" campaign could have very serious negative effect on the ability to make deposits.

How would a bank get actual knowledge? Well, you could be stupid enough to tell them you make online gambling deposits. More likely, someone else will tell them. Most likely, an FBI agent could sign up at a site, make a deposit and trace the transaction till he finds it goes overseas or to some company. He then directs the last US bank in the chain to insure it does not happen again .... Will the FBI do this? Will the FBI do it often enough to really mess with the system?

You will have to ask the new FBI director (or the new US Attorney General). But even if we get good answers from officials in an Obama administration, the next administration after Obama may have a different view of how much enforcement to apply.

See, thats what the guys at Treasury really did here, they were forced to write the regs, and knew making banks do the investigation and monitoring was unworkable. So the regs let the banks off pretty easy, but left the door open for others to do the investigation and monitoring. If others take up that call and work hard at it, these regulations will significantly curtail the industry's ability to process deposits.

This is far from the time to take it easy.

Skallagrim

i thinks games at cake games r dying becoz it s so damn hard to get money and off the site.

once a fish depletes his funds he go do something else.

with the cutting off of funding alternatives it doesnt matter if onlineoker is legal or not.



if the gov. can take down the mob they surely can do the same to online poker in usa.

It might be time 2 spill some blood.