also,
Same team Farva!

I like this idea!!! Lets do it

FWIW Phil Hellmuth's brother is a lawyer in Minneapolis and could seize the opportunity to garner publicity for his law firm as well as spend some quality time with his brother.

I tp/mm a month ago and move to Edina MN and this is how I'm treated. Horrible.

I've gotten a few pm's regarding vpn's.

Here is the one i messed around with around the uiega time...

http://www.findnot.com/

The strange thing is this law is the 1961 Wire Act; not the UIGEA. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that this law only applies to sports betting. Thus, I expect lots of litigation against this action.

So, TE is the PPA ready to file litigation in federal court to enjoin the state from taking any action against these ISP's and the ISP's from blocking any online poker sites?

That's certainly a very viable option. I'll let you know as soon as the decision has been made.

Why couldnt you just drive across the state line,get and air card that isnt "based in minnesota" and get a PO BOX for your address to use?

Bill gets sent through email.

There are ways around everything.

Either way the one excerpt said Minnesota isnt required to comply,and that the compliance was "requested" not "required"

I'm sure players can find ways around any ban, and we should plan how just in case. However, this is really about our rights. If Minnesota succeeds, every state will be able to follow suit. I'd rather play freely.

Being that I live in Minnesota, and play poker, I will be more than willing to fight the fight on this absurd act. Trying to use a law passed in 1961 to enforce internet gambling in 2009, wtf is this ****?

/WTFISTHIS****.jpg

Um, hi, sarcasm? Notice the post I was responding to. Just jabbing the liberals a little because they told me online poker would be legal by now if we elected Obama

Mark

skall - We're all on the same side here pretty much. Telling someone they are being selfish for just asking general questions on whether it would really hurt a determined player's ability to play is inappropriate.

Your ideas of 'should be doing everything possible to stop the attack on your rights' pretty much means just writing to various politicians, right? Unless there's also some live protest you want everyone to show up for or think there's anything else that can be done. So it's not like you can't ask AT THE SAME TIME, "Hey...what's a VPN? So if I wanted to keep playing they wouldn't be able to stop me, right?"

Stop looking at the mere asking of the Q as an attack against the efforts to stop/overturn this. It is the exact same Q many other Minnesotans are asking right now. I'm also thinking the same thing here in Pennsylvania. Basically what's going through my mind is, "this sucks and those people are really idiots. But at least I know that if they tried to do that here it seems I have some relatively easy work-arounds evidently just by doing whatever I need to do to make my ISP look like it's in Mexico or something."

Yeah, they shouldn't be doing this blocking stuff anyway and we all get that. But the fact that they can't really stop the determined gambler or poker player regardless is a nice comfort to have for Minnesotans and for anyone in any other state where the government might try to get all ridiculous about this stuff.

Seriously.

I'm a relatively intelligent, political science grad (well, 5 credits short) with a fair amount of free time. Where do I enlist? What can I do?

This is just ******ed. I've always thought the Minnesota government was inefficient and expensive, but it always seemed to be somewhat pragmatic and effective. But this seems tyrannical or something. /hyperbole

Abso,

Is it you or someone other MN poster that knows Sludge or Lake or someone at KFAN? Can we get TheEngineer on the radio to talk about what's happening?

Stop.

Right now.

Obviously this issue has politics involved but this is NOT the place to argue or joke whether this would have or wouldn't have happened if Jesse was governor or Al Franken or Obama or Arnold Schwartzeneger or anyone else.

Do you see what you started with your silly little political joke? This forum has Republicans and Democrats alike as well as Conservatives and Liberals many of whom get sick of jokes about whether they are or aren't to blame and then they get sensitive about it and then it spirals out of control from there.

Please do whatever you can to keep the thread on topic and cease with any political jokes. It always leads to annoying hijacks and unrelated arguments.

You want a couple guys at a sports talk station to talk about this?

Just saw the commercial for Fox9 news at five and they mentioned "big changes in store for those who like to roll the dice online" after their swine flu hype.

Interested to see if/how they spin it.

Sludge is a huge poker fan and does commercials for St Croix Casino, also has (had?) a poker show on Monday nights with a couple other guys from the station.

MicroBob,

Yes, I do. Is it going to hurt? Any casual poker player hearing about this is a good thing. Wait, your right, alerting a media outlet with the exact target audience is a terrible idea.

You really didn't think through your post, did you?

Bob,

Do you think it would hurt?

People shouldn't be so sensitive imo

I guess I'm not used to how easy it is for people in NVG to get sidetracked since I don't post in here much. Must be annoying for you guys if that's the case. But I see your point if its that hard to keep a thread on topic.

Mark

Deleting this post. Please keep the political arguments and blame-game stuff out of this thread. Thanks.

what % of people play online poker though? it will get passed like everything else unfortunately because they'll just have to say children 3 times fast and everyone will roll over, maybe they could link in swine flu too.

(move or use a VPN obv)

This story just came to EVERYBODY's attention today. And Its not your concern for your life or you family that bothered me (quite the contrary, concern for every MN - and US - poker player's life and family is at the heart of my thinking). What bothered me was your response to that concern which I read to be "help me learn how to get around this." Kind of like if MN was going to pass a law making beer illegal and your post was "where do I find information on secret home brewing techniques."

While temporary end-runs are always possible when it comes to the internet, is that what we should concentrate on now? Once you figure one work-around, the authorities will figure a way to stop it. Then you figure a new work-around, and the authorities stop that one.... and so on. A rather bleak future for poker I think.

In other words, if this action by MN holds up politically and legally, it really does not matter whether you know how to get a VPN, or can proxy your play from a computer you rent in Costa Rica and access remotely. Those "solutions" will be temporary at best. And further, just how long do you think reputable sites will continue to allow US players if such methods are the only ways US players can get connected to the site?

I am not standing on any sort of "high chair" nor attempting to win "converts." I am telling you that if this action by MN is successful it is pretty much the end of online poker in the US. Therefore we need to concentrate on not letting it happen rather than thinking about ways to get around it if it does.

If that offends you so be it, but it was not meant to offend.

Skallagrim

Using a VPN doesn't sound like a good option to me. While I understand why people are pointing this out, lets focus on fighting for now. Circumventing the law to find a way to continue supporting my family is not a situation I want to get into.

Next, I have been posting in the leg forum thread, so I will cross post a few posts here.


"I'm sorry that I don't know much about this, but what kind of precedent is set for blocking IPs in the US?"

"I will check the PPA site and this thread regularly to see if there is an official PPA letter for this specific issue. I hope something gets put up soon. I am going to get as many people from MN as possible to sign it."

"I'm very glad to hear the PPA is going to actively defend against this. I am still in complete shock and probably angrier than I have been in a very long time. Every time I talk about this stuff, I get heated, but to suddenly drop this with ISP blocking and in Minnesota? I am just stunned.

Still waiting for direction from the PPA. I want to do as much as I can and get my friends in MN to do the same."


"I know I have been cluttering up this thread with angry posts, for that I am sorry.

I really want to figure out what to do here. Is there benefit to trying to organize MN poker players to protest in front of the state capital? If so, would doing it sooner than later have more benefit as the info was recently released? I am very naive and uninformed regarding this kind of thing, so any help and guidance here would be greatly appreciated."