UIGEA is not involved in this case. Otherwise, your post was a very good read on the situation.

I've been told that Stars offers play money games in California, which if true probably gives them the minimum contacts needed.

Also, does Stars make ex-pat US players who play in Mexico/ROW cash out outside the US or will they wire funds to US accounts ?

The TOS referral to IOM courts remains a problem in avoiding dismissal where filed, but the dismissal would not be with prejudice to re-filing on IOM if the case is tossed from California. (Excellent find on that S.Ct "poker seizure" case denying jurisdiction in Nevada, decided below by the 9th Circuit.)

They won't wire to US accounts, and they won't even wire to USD-denominated accounts in Canada for example. I spent a lot of time looking into this and it sounds like even transactions to USD-based accounts in other countries "touch" the US banking system en route, so that's why it isn't allowed.

That doesn't surprise me.

Forgive my ignorance, are their games/tournaments outside NJ denominated in USD ?

Can you confirm whether they offer play for free, with or without prizing or buying chips into the California market ?

Almost all real money games offered by Pokerstars are USD denominated. PS France and maybe some other local clients use Euro exclusively. PS global has a very limited number of EUR and GBP denominated games, typically only cash games I believe.

Pokerstars does offer play money poker in California via the Pokerstars.net client, which does not require pay to play although does allow you to purchase chips as you mention.

Satellites to live tournament events are in the currency of the target event, for example Monte Carlo satellites are in EUR. PCA in USD and London evens in GBP

Looks like "sufficient contacts" in light of that play money business in the State/CD.

I still think the TOS choice of IOM as an exclusive forum is an open issue that will be tough on the Plaintiff.

If you enjoyed the last case, you may enjoy this other one was able to find as well? It seems like it may change things a fair bit?


Was only able to find these two though - guess there could be many more floating around out there?


Legal cases can be interesting to follow - guess sometimes people can wind up colouring a little outside the lines in life, and then there can be a big puzzle of trying to figure out what's right and what's fair, and stuff?

Will be interesting to read Stars' answer, if it's available for reading somewhere on the internet (free of charge, lol)

The 19 April 2011 agreement with the DOJ (in which PokerStars agreed to stop serving US players and DOJ returned the domain name to PokerStars) expressly required PokerStars to allow cash outs to US players.

While it forbid PokerStars from accepting deposits and real money play from the US, it actually required PokerStars to process withdrawals to the US. Indeed, even the current PokerStars TOS does not prohibit a player withdrawing money while they are in the US.

The settlement which substantially resolved the case did not terminate the first, 19 April 2011 agreement as far as I can see, so I imagine that PokerStars is still obligated to allow US players to withdraw.

Thus, there are two ways to withdraw money while in the US:
a) If you have a US PokerStars account, with money in it from prior to April 2011, then I expect that PokerStars would cash it out to your US financial instutition.
b) If you have a non-US PokerStars account, there's no prohibition in the PokerStars TOS to make a withdrawal while you are in the USA (eg, you're ordinarily resident in Russia, and you go to Los Angeles on holiday). Some of the automated PokerStars systems might incorrectly make it hard but there's nothing in the Terms of Service to prohibit you from circumventing those automated restrictions to withdraw while you are located in California (for example).

See here from the current PokerStars TOS:
They might not offer wires to US bank accounts, but you can get a cheque or something else instead as described above. I don't know the details of what payment system/processor would be used, but there's no prohibition on someone who is ordinarily resident in Russia (but is temporarily in California) withdrawing to their Russian bank account.

All US-dollar wires in the world must necessarily pass through a US-Bank. PStars is not alone in their prohibition of wires to US-denominated accounts in Canada.

That must be a fairly new thing. I used to work for a major UK bank and a transfer from one UK based USD account to another was instant and therefore can’t have touched the US banking system.
Things may have have changed in the last few years though

Thanks, again. I'm too lazy to do the research myself without a paying client. What the article does is break down the law seemingly involved with personal injury lines of cases.

What looks interesting here is the angle that Vayo is denying that the activity that gave rise to his account balance ever took place from California, yet suing Stars from a court in California.

An in-house transfer policy, where the transfer is entirely on the internal books, nevertheless may be subject a newer bank policy concern that anything related to US dollar assets may jeopardize the UK bank's corresponding banking relationship with whatever US Bank does provide access for clearing wires through the Fed.

Where the underlying activity is gambling, rather than say paying off a porn star, that concern about correspondence banking relationships is likely exacerbated.

Been that way for several years, I was surprised to learn itt that Stars denominates cash games generally in USD. So far, I've learned quite a bit from posts in this thread.

Daimler was a sea change, and made it much harder to get jurisdiction against a foreign defendant. Vayo has two significant gating problems here: the forum selection clause problem, in which the TOS sends disputed to the Isle of Man) and getting personal jurisdiction over PokerStars in California. It used to be the case that doing business in a state would get you jurisdiction, but no more.

I’ll put some money on the proposition that Vayo loses on one or both of these grounds in the district court.

Sam,

I’ll guess that Stars doesn’t answer, and instead files a motion to dismiss for a) lack of jurisdiction and b) violation of the forum selection clause. These would be in lieu of an answer under Rule 12.

I haven’t researched this stuff in a while, but it’s fairly routine civil procedure.

All of this is very interesting, except there's no prohibition on PokerStars paying withdrawals to players who are in the US - not only is there no such prohibition, there's an affirmative requirement (agreed with the US DOJ) that PokerStars process withdrawals to US players.

PokerStars' agreement with the DOJ may very well have been limited to allowing withdrawals to then-existing US customers.

Also, any agreement that PokerStars may have with the DOJ does not change a bank's, or an acquirer's, policies - and most reputable (bank and card) processors do not allow USD gambling transactions (regardless of the location of the player / card issuer / bank account).

A bit off topic but Gary Benson (a well known Australian player who owns/owned a cashout business called intercash where players could cash out/transfer between sites) just successfully sued Stars for 285k in Australian court that was withheld by Stars. It's a hard slog to get through but an interesting read also featuring Tony G and Pokernews

https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decis...b074a7c6e1f67b

If it's worthy of it's own thread mods feel free to move but good to see a court decide Stars don't just have the right to take players money out of their accounts and invent reasons to justify it.

Thanks, great find.

Pretty neat to be able to follow this case, with insight from lawyers and people who are familiar with Stars policies

There seem to be a couple of legal poker issues in NVG these days - looking forward to seeing the Stars motion to dismiss ... and until then there's the Chris Ferguson situation to follow


Hope everybody has a nice weekend!

How's this coming along?

No se

Great find and great read here....Benson's lawyer absolutely slayed it, bravo

I have not seen this in any news outlet. It's understandable (although imoral) that Pokernews did not publish it, but not even "independent" sites like Pokerfuse published anything.

NVG was once a reliable source, but has become a less attractive forum in recent years. There's maybe a handful of writers checking this section regularly, so missing this post was most likely just a case of randomness.

Probably worthy of it's own thread I agree. I hope Vayo gets paid assuming Stars can't prove he was in a prohibited jurisdiction at the time of the event. Benson shows that Stars can be beaten if they are acting unethically.

I agree it's absurd Pokernews aren't covering it but given Tony G and Pokerstars are involved parties I can see why they wouldn't. Other sites though no idea.