Will my Pokerstars money be safe when they get a HUGE judgment against them by the U.S. Government?

Yes.

id say yes also..they have proven themselves time and time again

But 1.5 billion seems pretty unrecoverable?!?

As part of their license ps has always had to have had a ring-fenced account that covers all player deposits.

As part of their license so did FT...

incorrect

Threshold question: can the US government forcibly recover money (supposedly) owed it from accounts overseas (not that I have any personal interest in the question :-) )?

Please go back under your bridge troll.

Several days after BF, a PS rep responded to me by phone, explained the situation, assured me that my funds were safe, and assured me that I would get paid back as soon as a deal could be worked out.

Everything he said was reliable, and AFAIK all PS player funds were returned in full as soon as a deal could be worked out.

PokerStars has been a fantastic company with great support, and despite all of this craziness and whatever stuff they did to work out payment processing, they've handled this about as well as they possibly could.

FTP is a whole different story. Lets all hope we don't have to see a 7th post from you.

Ban this fruit. TROLL


OP, I would cash out 80% and play with the rest. Just reload if you need more. Your monies are safe.

I remember reading somewhere that at their peek they were making ~1.5 billion a year and about 500 million of that was profit.

Juk

They won't have to pay anywhere near 1.5B imo.

Which means.. that they have paid out in the past. I love stars but without looking at their balance sheet you really can't tell for sure. Unless there's a third party validation occurring regularly, how can people be so sure account segregation is being properly observed?

perhaps by the speed they paid all American players after bf

... and also based on the fact that they haven't implemented any sort of ridiculous withdrawal limits and restricted cash out options like you saw with FTP and Cereus.

That right there is your writing on the wall. If money continues to flow freely as it has in the past, we're in the clear. Once a site starts bottlenecking cash outs, you know segregation is not happening. There is zero reason to not pay players their money at their discretion if you do in fact have 100% of it in hand.

If, for example, Stars had $500MM in segregated player deposits and $500MM in assets and operating funds but was required to pay all $1.5B (unlikely amount in a settlement in any case), that $500MM in player deposits does not get taken to cover the fine even if Stars were to go bankrupt after losing their $500MM worth of private funds, afaik.

The key here is whether player deposits are truly 100% segregated. The evidence for Stars so far based on their actions weighs heavily towards segregation while the evidence for FTP and Cereus weighed much more heavily in the opposite direction.

Nope because I dont trust any online poker sites anymore. I do recognize that stars has done everything they can to earn a players trust but I dont owe them anything. They make their rake off me so I guess that's my way of saying thanks for the solid security. I will keep a small balance on there from now on (just what I need). If all these scandals taught me anything, it's not to trust any of them.

I'm curious about this well.

Theyd prolly end up owing more money than is due for payout by NOT paying the payouts... prolly in their best interest if A) they dont want to get mega screwed and B) they want any future business if it ever exists in the USA