Alright guys, here's my post on the status quo/legal actions:

We NEED to do something about this. We need to organize, create more lobbyists and support those that are supporting poker in order to survive. Compare this to moving up in stakes and trying to survive against better regs, but instead its real life and our accessibility to a place of work is at stake.

**** like whats going on in Washington is happening and will continue to happen if we don't fight back. I want to challenge every poker player who either is: making an income from poker, or just enjoys the game, to get informed on how fight back.

If we don't know how to fight back, what's going to stop the DOJ and government from passing a bill to completely make it illegal to play online? Are you going to stop them? How? If you aren't trying to make a change in how online poker is being treated, then we are like abused puppy's just waiting to die. I can't stress that enough.

Can those that understand how congress, legislation, and the law system work, post information of how to get involved? There is the PPA, but we NEED to do more than that, or at least become more involved with them I'm interested as a U.S citizen in getting involved with my government and making change.

Having this mindset is the only way to survive as an online poker player. If you're a poker player who isn't trying to get involved in making change you are against poker in my opinion.

Is a bank wire straight from say stars to the bank, or do they use these payment processors? Apologies for nub question.

Time to go back to live poker or start playing live.

Prob doesn't seem like a waste of resources when they get millions of dollars by just getting a couple of poker players to rat out which accounts are poker payment processors.

This isn't an ongoing "happening". This is a couple of laws from 2006 passed at the height of an anti-poker hysteria in the U.S., a madness which managed to get online poker banned in just 1 of 50 states.

My take on the status quo: if you don't live in Washington State, there's absolutely no reason to stir up the hornet's nest now 5 years later. Sit back, enjoy playing online poker, hope that your Governor's son or daughter doesn't go and blow their college tuition in an Ivey Death-match, and everything will be fine.

OR, we can actually try to make a difference. I prefer to try to make a difference. I agree that at times "the status quo won't last" is greatly exaggerated. The problem is more then just poker, IMO. Today its poker, tomorrow its something else. When will you decide its time to fight back? When they start telling you which websites you can navigate too? When they start censoring certain websites? Obviously, these are the extremes and I don't think it would come to this, but at some point, we as US citizens need to stand up and fight for our freedom. Poker is just one reason of many to decide to get involved. Obviously, its greatly important to most of us that frequent these forums and is worth fighting for IMO and so is our overall freedom!

Admittedly, I haven't done a lot. Sure I've sent letters and I vote but EVERYONE needs to take an interest in this whether or not you think that the Status Quo will survive or not! Including myself.

Lets say you lived in WA and wanted to use Absolute Poker, Carbon Poker etc... a 2nd tier site that accepts WA players. Would the money in your account just be taken away? Or did this move only apply to the named persons in the OP? Aka - just keep playing because nothing will happen. Still a bit confused on whats happening.

The problem is that, they are politicians, who were put in office by your democracy. The reason why democracy produces idiotic results, is because the majority of people are idiots. Not saying you can't do anything, just saying that it's an uphill battle

Bad.

Feds bust payment processors who were serving online poker players in the state of Washington, where playing online poker for real money is a felony.

Does that mean players could be arrested?

Create lobbyists? Lobbyists are people. I guess I can work on creating some lobbyists for ya. Just send Liv over to my place and I'll get right on that.

Yup. But Washington State authorities say they aren't going to do so. For now.

wouldn't it be great publicity and attention for us if they DID go after an average Joe?

Probabably not a lot. All the have to do is deposit and cash out a few times. then follow the money. they could probably pay some clown $15/ hr to do this. so probably less than $100 in wages, less than $500 in money lost at the sites. and less than 4 hours in time.

I dont agree with what the DOJ is doing, but as far as time and money invested, they get a huge return on the money they sieze,

Let's hope they choose a veteran. Or better yet a veteran who was injured during their service of our country.

Pretty weird finding this thread -- and noticing the date of the posted article -- this long after Black Friday. I guess if I had been paying more attention, Black Friday would not have been as surprising.

Police State with martial law within 5 yrs

Considering what just snuck through Congress in the defense funding bill and Obama not vetoing it, your prediction might be closer to reality then you think sadly. (good thing I still have the option of going to Canada as I have dual-citizenship might need to after all)

Why is it every time someone posts a news item that has something to do with the US situation/Washington DC, a couple of people turn it into a chance to argue about the PPA?

There's other threads for that. This isn't one of them. So knock it off.

Washington State was a test case for black friday IMO.

Both were certainly very successful for the DoJ.

You are chastising people from January and this is December

This is about Washington STATE -- not DC.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/57...out-ft-716470/

Just one of the many, many seizures of money. ^^

We also know now that many times players were contacted and voluntarily assisted the feds. It was reported so just recently in one that South Carlina got, and even mentioned the assistance from players.

This didn't have much to do with the state and is just coincidence, imo. There's been seizures of accounts in many, many states now. Also many departments, from the secret service, to even local police. Most notably have been the DOJ out of SDNY, Houston, and Baltimore. Apparently, from what I heard, Black Friday was mostly set up by the feds out of Baltimore, and SDNY kinda undercut them and scooped the glory.

My main concern is many of the seizures involved player funds with little to no info on how to make a claim for it and in some cases, seemingly no public records of it on forfeiture.Gov