Very interesting read Barry.

http://www.barrygreenstein.com/bad-actor-clause/

good read, ty allen

when he says and I quote : I was told this in 2009 or 2010, and everybody knows what happened on Black Friday, April 15, 2011. The U.S. Department of Justice shut the sites down and when the lights came on, we found out that Full Tilt was in a bad hole from their illegal activity

does he mean that he knew about ftp not having the player funds anymore in 2009?

Great read and a great interpretation of the current situation.

In reading the quoted passage, I infer the opposite. Specifically this: "...when the lights came on, we found out that..." means it was after the Black Friday shutdown that Tilt's situation became known to the public, including Barry. i.e., he found out in 2011.

Does Barry still post here?

Hasn't since September 2012. I wouldn't have guessed it was that long but it was during the aftermath of the Lederer interviews, which is now two years ago.

Hi Everyone:

I read the article and there's a couple of things I view a little differently.

First is the idea that potential US Internet poker sites were told by the DOJ not to pursue Internet poker in the early 2000's. I heard this at a panel discussion that Tom Breitling of Ultimate Poker participated in about a year-and-a half ago, and (going from memory) this was his argument. And while I don't profess to speak for Mr. Breitling, I took it to mean that it would not be fair for a new company to have to compete against PokerStars since they would be well behind in areas such as software and customer service.

The other area where I disagree is that PokerStars, being so good, would quickly become a monopoly. Yes, I agree that PokerStars is a terrific company, but I also believe that their presence in the online poker market would have the opposite effect.

One of the issues we're seeing now is the operating sites in both Nevada and New Jersey don't have as many players as expected. There are many reasons for this with player liquidity probably being the foremost one, but PokerStars is terrific at creating new players. That's their history.

But what's being over looked is that many players who download Internet poker software onto their computers don't just play on one site. They'll have several clients on their computers and all of these sites will get some play. So it's my opinion that if PokerStars comes into the market, other sites will benefit as the overall player pool gets larger.

And I'm not the only one with this opinion. As Howard Stutz recently reported, Brian Mattingley, 888 CEO, said something very similar:

http://www.onlinepokerreport.com/128...erstars-in-us/

Best wishes,
Mason

If you look at the player numbers, they pretty much have a monopoly in every market they are in now (like 70-80% of traffic). So what makes you think US would be different?

I currently play in NJ across all of the sites offered and I am really excited for PS to come here. I can definitely agree with whats been said that it will boost the traffic on all the sites. I think that a company like PS will be able to properly advertise the important message "online poker is available in NJ and its all monitored by the gaming control board". There are a lot of people I talk to in the casinos in the area that reverted back to a pre poker boom mentality of just not trusting these unknown sites.

That makes sense. I hope that point gets more exposure in the future.

If you are right, it seems to me that all sides stand to gain from the implementation of some form of bitcoin transactions between sites as that would facilitate the exchange of "deposited" money . The transaction fees would then be miniscule and players do in fact already take money from one site to another via costly methods for all parties so the direct savings on that alone would probably be worthwhile.

There wouldn't need to be any concerns about regulations this way either since everything can be completely monitored and all money's actually cashed out could still be in dollars (or whatever currency is standard for the player). You could request site A to transfer $100 to site B, and both sites have a perfectly provable transaction on the bitcoin ledger. This can be handed in to the government for an audit (bitcoin can be "not" anonymous as well if we want). The players might not be able to deposit/cash with bitcoin, but it could be just as interesting if the sites could do the exchange for us. Money saved by the players, is some percentage spent back into the poker economy.

In some ways doing it this way would be MORE transparent and might actually satisfy governments reasons for regulation while creating a fairer market place for both the players and the sites. It might be easier to convince the smaller "local" sites of the benefits of this added option that creates a competitive market.

Hi G.Nouveau:

I don't know enough about bit coins to know whether this would work or not, but one thing I do understand, and correct me if in error, is that the value of bitcoins fluctuates greatly. And if this is the case, wouldn't these fluctuations be the equivalent to a hidden cost making the type of transactions that you are describing much more expensive?

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi FWWM:

It may not be relative to the percentage that you give. But a monopoly (or near monopoly) implies that it's bad for competitors, and my argument is that the overall player base would increase by enough that the competitors of PokerStars would also benefit.

Let me give you an interesting analogy. In 1996 2+2 books were picked up by the major book store chains. But we immediately saw a problem, and that problem was all the terrible poker books which were already on the shelves of these stores. So one of the things that we did when talking to the book buyers of Borders and Barnes & Noble, who knew little about the subject called poker (and gambling), was to steer them towards stocking some of our competitors books that we felt were also pretty good. Our idea was that if someone new to poker purchased a bad book, they would probably not buy another one, but if they purchased a good book, they would often return and purchase several more.

By the way, I think it's fair to say that our approach was thinking "outside the box," and it's what I think needs to be done here relative to PokerStars. Also, we did become far more successful than we ever thought possible, and it's our belief that this approach towards our toughest competition was part of the reason. In addition, it's still our policy today and you can see this by going to our Books and Publications Forum where discussion of non-2+2 books is welcomed.

Best wishes,
Mason

"Greatly", no. At least the way I would interpret greatly. But the fluctuations are well beyond marginal/negligible. The price of a bitcoin relative to $ varies much more so than say, the exchange rate between $ and €. So if mild fluctuations are enough to make bitcoin deposits a concern for regulated online poker, then it's certainly a huge issue that would need to be addressed.

Actually, you are wrong. If you look at the biggest regulated market, France, Pokerstars is in second place. France is also the only regulated market that they have real competition.

The RoW market has no competitors. It's Stars and a host of companies with ****ty software and ****ty support.

In the Italian market, it's Stars vs blackmarket vendors.

In the Spanish market, there is no one else.

The one market where they have competent competition they are in second place.

A large organization that wanted to could set up to get in and out of Bitcoin immediately quite cheaply. It wouldn't be free but it should be significantly cheaper than paying credit card fees.

Didn't Pokerstars engage in some deceptive practices as far as payment processors are concerned? I played on PS from 2006 until BF. At first I used Neteller, then after they shut down I used various means of transferring funds including sending cashiers checks and receiving checks from some entity (Not labeled PS) which I deposited in my bank account. Then a year or so before BF I was able to use echecks and fund my PS account directly from my bank account and also receive funds from PS directly into my bank account. I am sure that the incoming funds transfers did not include information that the funds originated from a poker site.

FWIW, it only took about a week for me to receive my funds from PS after they were shut down. I would gladly play there again if I could.

Actually, one of the interesting things about the technology is you can basically auto peg the coin to anything you want. So whatever we use today that is so stable compared to bitcoin, you can have the same stability. Not to mention if the "poker world" picks it up this would probably keep its value from dropping.

There are numerous technologies coming out in the next few months that build on the ideas. With a little demand from the players and some education on the technologies we might have a lot of interesting mutually beneficial changes in our reach.

Yes this as well, at first bitcoin was advertised to speculators, but its truth worth is as a technology that allows these kinds of things. Its very well studied and meant to bring ultra-stability, not through price per say, but through its technological capabilities (ie "smart contracts")

(btw always fascinating how intuitive you "old sharks" can be, pointing out the "cost of instability". We might then look at the corollary or "gain from stability" which is what this technology truly brings, and ask who receives the benefit. I'm thinking the global economy.)

So to sum up:

- PokerStars is good
- Other Sites are bad
- Those operating in US don't want Stars coming in
- Barry apparently writes his site in ****ing italics

Saying PokerStars has a monopoly on internet poker because they get "70%" of all traffic is like saying Subway has a monopoly on foot-long sandwiches.

Yes. They committed fraud.

InB4 George Eads says "I am NOT a bad actor".

You are searching for something that isn't there. Stop playing detective.

Mason,

Maybe I can help clarify a few things about Bitcoin for you. First of all, Bitcoin (capital B) is a protocol, and it functions as a currency, which is denominated it "bits" (one millionth of one BTC) or "bitcoins" (1 BTC).

Vendors and merchants DO NOT need to accept any risk of price fluctuation, as there are many ways for BTC to be converted instantly into dollars. Coinbase and other companies offer ways for merchants to accept BTC with zero risk, with lower fees than any credit card or paypal.

It isnt possible for Stars to accept bitcoins directly because to do so they would have to register as a money transmitter in all 50 US states, along with similar regulations in other countries. However trying to circumvent the UIGEA through the use of Bitcoin, even though technically legal, could easily hurt their relationship with the US Gov.

CLIFF NOTES: Pokerstars cant accept BTC directly without a ton of red tape and expenses, but could possibly do so via Coinbase (or similar company), if Coinbase decided the money was worth the risk and scrutiny, but at this point that seems unlikely.

PS: Mason, as a devout libertarian Im frankly shocked you dont know more about Bitcoin. Political and philosophical concerns aside, if you have doubts about the sustainability of the fractional reserve banking system and current Federal Reserve monetary policy, cryptocurrency offers another avenue to diversify your investments outside of the market along with real estate, precious metals, and fine art.