whats going on atm?

will onlinepoker be banned in usa?

is ftp and stars going down?

chances it will end well?

voting bills out of committe

no

no but your mom does

58%

I think greater than 58% personally

wtf would rakeback disappear?

+100000000

There's basically no reason to think that rakeback would disappear because of this bill. In particular, if you keep playing on your current sites, it definitely won't disappear there since they already have agreements with you (or technically they have agreements with your affiliate and your affiliate has an agreement with you).

Some people were throwing random speculation in for no reason about rakeback just like some people have thrown in random speculation about just about everything ITT. Beanie took the opportunity to say (and TE agreed) that the industry might be moving towards more reward programs and less rakeback (i.e. more like Stars and less like FTP). The only way that that's related to the bill is that the bill's passage would create lots of new poker sites that may try out some new systems.

The bill definitely doesn't ban rakeback and definitely doesn't create ridiculously high fees that would mandate really high rake or getting rid of rakeback or anything like that.

just like to point out that there is no way anything is getting passed under a republican filibustering senate,

am i rite?

mods why u delete, this is completely on topic, and i'd be happy to be proven wrong..

Any guesses on what the tax rate on net poker income would be like? (once the bill is passed)

Senate doesn't filibuster everything, just important stuff. Maybe poker is important to us but to Congress, not so much. There are a lot of senators that oppose poker enough to to slip UIGEA into a must-pass bill but not so many that are willing to put in the effort needed to maintain a filibuster. Senators don't have to camp outside the Senate floor any more but they still have to keep showing up and making cloture votes which they may not be willing to do for something as insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) as online poker.

Since the Republicans only have 41 votes right now a lot of stuff is going to pass even if someone did want to filibuster it because if the vote is not strictly party line there might be 60 votes for it anyway (i.e. one Republican supporter is enough to break a filibuster and there are 41 different Republicans in the Senate, not 41 clones of Max Baucus).

Note filibustering is not a Republican tactic, both parties use it when they are in the minority, which just happens to be the Republicans now. Since Republicans will almost certainly gain several seats in the next election it would really be better for this bill to pass before then.

imo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXCwcyxVOB0#t=0m47s

When it's all said and done, if online poker is legalized/regulate,d it will not be profitable for online players I'm guessing due to what will probably be unreasonable tax code as well as hefty raking. If it is profitable though it's very doubtful it will be more profitable than it currently is now.

What I envision when I think of legalized poker is basically an online site where the rake/taxes is so much that it can't be beat but the casual players really could care less and play anyway. As a result, the pros don't play on that site and stick to the offshore unregulated sites instead but they will have dried up even more due to the casual fish going to the unbeatable site.

So the tax implications for the site are paying a 2% tax on deposits? (confirmed?)

If so, not only would rake not go up, they could afford to lower it.

Right now, sites (or at least one) are actively paying 6% on financial transactions to process your payments because of the shadiness needed to do the drop.

ive seen other ppl say 8% tax on deposits tho im not sure where they are getting the number from. even still i dont see how it would cause the rake to go up much more than it is now on the major sites. esp if these sites are allowed to offer betting on horses.

I'm not sure the all the financial details are worked out yet, I believe there is another bill waiting for markup that has the financial details in it.

boy the us government

nice senate where a bunch of flyover states dictate to the cities....

GIVE US POKER DAMNIT

I'm not holding my breath. The bill was only voted on by represenatives in the financial services committee. They likely campaigned on fixing the economy and are more likely to understand the benefit of taxable online poker. When it goes to the Senate the views will be more objective.

Im not sure how rakeback works because it wasn't available when i began playing so i haven't really looked into it but I believe the speculation that it will be gone is thinking that any extra money from online poker will now be going to the federal government of the USA because this country is full of lazy degenerates loser scumbags who require welfare to live.

since we aren't going to let anyone starve in this country we send them a check to live every month.... and a place to live.... and free healthcare etc....


so rakeback will be gone in favor of paying for their laziness..... is the thinking.


oh, and our bombs so we can kick ass.

Maybe that's because they have very little legal, regulated competition? Is a B&M casino going to get away with exorbitant fees if their customers can stay home and gamble online?

What I saw said 2% state tax and 6% federal for a total of 8%.

The major sites have reported to the PPA that so long as the total deposit tax stays under the 10% figure they do not anticipate any major changes in rake or their rakeback and rewards policies. The new cost to them will be offset by lower costs elsewhere and by renewed growth in the market.

Skallagrim

For example, they could eliminate the costs of paying 3rd party payment processors?

based on the amendments written into the bill wouldnt the current major sites not be allowed to operate in the US market tho?

Operators who have broken the law will not be allowed licenses.

Whats this all about then?

Even so, with the current tax code for gambling it will be unbeatable if someone is paying the taxes the way they're supposed to be paid which considers a "session" the net win/loss for each table from when you sit down to stand up. If that's the case then each table online would be a session which drives up the wins/loss column making it so that people living in the states where you can't deduct losses get hammered. Seems for them to make this work they would have to change the tax code as well.