Do you accept Bitcoin?

Some of the posts earlier ITT comparing the shift from BTC to Seal's in game currency with that of Zynga poker are just awful. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't buy chips on Zynga and later on cash them back in, can you??

Extradition is a very dynamic, totally qualitative thing.
Gone are the days of some magical tropical oasis where a bad guy can make the big caper and sit on the beach thumbing his nose at authorities. Extradition bright-lines are as antiquated a notion as banking privacy. That is to say, those days are gone.

Lets say for the sake of argument that all crime falls into four general categories.

Trivial
Serious
Major
Osama bin Laden

Trivial crimes are just that. There will never be any effort expended on pursuing someone over them. Serious- but not major- crimes will very rarely effect an international extradition since international extraditions are a pain in the ass. The gears that have to be put into motion to make an extradition happen are major, involving diplomatic channels, the inertia of government is just way too heavy to pursue an extradition for a non-major crime. They look at it like, your punishment is you can never enter the US again. Bon voyage. Hope you can get citizenship someplace else before your passport expires.

As far as the 'effort' they put into finding this level of fugitive, its mostly automated. The USMS-ITD has some Orwellian databases that send up a bat signal whenever someone with certain indicators does basically anything involving their identity (registers a car, has utilities turned on, books an airline ticket, etc). In these cases, they just sit and wait for you to trip up but you don't get Tommy Lee Jones in a Tahoe chasing down leads. My *guess* is that Micon is somewhere in here. They probably aren't going to extradite, but **** gets weird when you're talking about raising the ire of billion dollar industries.

A major crime fugitive, now you're getting into the Tommy Lee Jones, extradition-possible zone, depending on the country. This is where **** gets tricky. This is where the US Marshalls just fly into that 'non-extradition' country you thought you had figured out and body-snatch you. This is where the diplomatic formalities are hastened and discretionary decisions are made. Even places like Switzerland, notorious for their non-extradition, have effected extraditions on a discretionary basis. Save for countries that have actual laws prohibiting extradition of certain individuals and you enjoy that protection (in which case the US knows better than to even pursue it, ie, Brazilian or French citizens cannot be extradited from their home country) there is no human being on earth who is worth more than a diplomatic row between countries, so if Italy said give us Amanda Knox, we would have.

In a super-duper mega villain, they get no quarter whatsoever. We will violate international law to hunt one of those down.

Source: I know.

Ignorance is Bliss

Further,

This is by far your most ridiculous assertion. Nevada clearly does want a "public spectical" because they want to make a very public example of Micon to warn off any others who might think of operating an unlicensed gaming site in Nevada. This is evidenced by the press conferences they have called and press releases that they have issued. They could have just issued the warrant without doing those things. Their actions make it clear that they want the publicity and intend to prosecute Micon as publicly as possible - this also makes it very likely that they will do everything in their power to extradite him so that they can do so.

Sincerely,

The Good Old Boys Conspiracy

Do you guys in the USA want legal regulated online poker or not?

Those who believe Micon should escape justice clearly do not. Essentially you're advocating a return to the chaos and uncertainty of the pre-Black Friday free-for-all.

Micon is a cool guy, but he's made some poor decisions. This warrant was inevitable.

We're arriving at a point in this country where there's such a breadth of utterly dumb laws that mindlessly advocating for 'the law' - for no intelligent reason other than it being 'the law'- is a real moral hazard.

Totally valid laws (in the mechanical sense) have served to accomplish totally horrible injustices (in the human sense). Whether or not that applies to Micon is up for debate but I can't rest my faith on the law alone in good conscience anymore.

The whole thing seems a bit of an overkill for what really comes down is "operating a business without a license". There are instances of such business with a lot more danger to the public that have gotten less fanfare that this poker website. (i.e, unlicensed medical clinics)

Press conference, undercover agents, surveillance???... for a 10-12k profit site? That would have to be the minimum daily cost of such an investigation.

Micon has obviously pissed off some very influential people and sadly this is a glaring example of unfettered political money influence in public policy.

strange no photoshops...

So your argument is that government regulation ensures fair play and protects individuals. Have you ever heard of the SEC?

Not particularly, no.

And low effective rake. Don't forget the low effective rake.

damn belgians, always ruining it for everyone else.

He knew he was violating the law though and this would happen eventually. You'd have to be an idiot not to while running something like that in the US. Can't see how he wins the defense either. Wish they'd get the ones that are screwing us over rather than the ones that aren't first though, just asking for some consistency or logic here. (I know will never happen)

they had a press conference about it so they think they probably will just get him when they want.

Well you must be living in a perpetual state of bliss then.

Everything that I've said is completely accurate and is common knowledge amongst people who actually have experience in these things. A bunch of self-deluded 'experts', like yourself, doesn't change that. Extradition is a very expensive process. Not everyone gets extradited; extradition depends largely on things like the nature of the crime and the strength of the case.

This is what LegalMatch has to say about extradition:
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-librar...-warrants.html

A couple questions of note from that article:

As I've said, as far as the question of will someone get extradited goes, the answer is, 'It depends.'

"If an Arrest Warrant Has Been Issued for Me in One State, Can I Be Arrested in Another?

Yes, but it really depends on what the warrant is for and how many resources the arresting state cares to expend on enforcing an out-of-state warrant..."


As I've said, whether the person is a threat to society does make a difference in determining if the person gets extradited.

"Can I Fight Extradition?

Extradition is most common in serious cases, like murder or mayhem..."


You and a few other 'experts' in this thread have been completely talking out of your asses about things that you clearly have no knowledge about. I've already challenged you to come up with any evidence to show that what you've been spewing is true but you haven't been able to do that. You have no idea how things work in actual practice. I've just shown a third party source to verify what I've been saying now I challenge you to do the same.

The reason that lawyers have such a bad reputation is that they are so often full of crap. You sir, are full of crap.

As a poker player, I am torn. I think Micon was doing a great thing and trying to find a way for us to play online legally. Businesses use loop holes in the law ALL OF THE TIME. What makes him any different?

However, when it comes to the BIG WIGS in this country, they want to shut down ANYTHING they do not have a hand in. Also, they will make this out to be another black eye on the industry, even though most of us know it wasn't. They will drag him through the mud as a criminal and make a big deal out of a mole hill only to feed their agenda.

I would be worried about them shutting down Bovada, ACR, and any other site we have access to in the United States. I play there to, but I damn sure don't leave a lot of money on there. We all know they can stop the gravy train anytime they want. They proved that on BF.

I think we just have to keep fighting for regulation and legal games online, instead of always finding loopholes or other options. Until we do, there is going to be incidents like this and problem after problem.

Although I side with Micon, I just think its time we keep fighting the right way until they cant deny us any longer and quit trying to find alternatives. The only answer is legalization....same with marijuana. =) But that's another argument and I don't even smoke any more. haha

Possible lessons learned from this include:

• Don't be publicly associated with an unlicensed site in a jurisdiction that has licensed sites
• If you are publicly associated with an unlicensed site, don't bring computers (or phones) into a jurisdiction that has licensed sites
• Licensed sites cannot compete with unlicensed sites. They need "protection" to remain in existence

Does Micon have a 2p2 sn?

There is a lot of bad blood between him and Malmuth/Sklansky. He was banned years ago.

No worries, ty.

NWP fo lyfe.

Sorry, but your above post is childish nonsense. The federal IGBA statute, which makes a State "gambling business" law violation into a potential federal offense, was enacted years ago. I even provided you the 18 USC cite to where it appears in the United States criminal code. I guess did not understand my post or could not be bothered to read the federal law itself. .....

I cannot guess how you think I said that federal charges had been filed in this State proceeding against Micon, maybe you do not understand at all what I wrote about the IGBA.

Seriously, you seemingly do not understand much re the real world about which you freely opine in this thread.

Real world question: Would a US person with a State warrant open for a felony likely be detained by immigration at his first US port of entry ? Given Micon's last known location, apparently atop Shirley Heights overlooking English Harbor in Antigua, how does your scenario get him past CBP without being detained ?

Real world question 2: Would a person so detained by CBP be afforded the "protections" against extradition you think would come into play ? (I frankly do not know the answer to this one, but doubt matters would get that far.)

Is this the guy who used to drink his pee?

I was "aghast" that you would ignore/deny the prospect of federal charges in posting about "all of this". It's become clear you were simply unaware of their potential to come into play as "all of this" evolved.

FWIW, I do not expect federal charges to be filed against Micon any time soon; certainly not before Nevada is done. I do not see a Federal Prosecutor spending resources on this, given Nevada's active enforcement. Micon has retained very good legal counsel for advice and for his defense if it comes to that.

Whether this State action means SWCPoker will refuse game play connections to Nevada IPs going forward remains to be seen. It may be byond your knowledge or memory, but the Commonwealth of Kentucky took a State-level action against a number of operators years back. Some cut off Kentucky based players, including TE.

To put the whole matter into its Nevada/States Rights context a bit, what Nevada has done is demonstrate that it will, as a State, take action to enforce its gaming law prohibitions. The AG was making a political point that States CAN be leftto their own in combatting gambling law violations and that Nevada has an appetite to do so. he action was taken against a very local, very vocal unlicensd gaming operation located in Nevada.

(Nevada Gaming otherwise has been expressly hands-off regarding bitcoin, there are Bitcoin ATMs on the floor of two Nevada casinos. Even as Nevada casinos move away from "cash plays", they still welcome action if cash first is converted to chips, and noted for CTRs if appropriate.)

I'm confident someone will eventually post something in this thread that isn't completely uninformed horsedung.