In an effort to try and keep their recreational players happy Merge has begun to revoke winning players VIP privileges (rakeback ect) as well as impose restrictions on the amount of tables playable by winning players.

They refuse to respond with reasoning or selection criteria for these actions other than citing vague and broad terms of service agreements and that it was a "management decision". Then they say "We will not provide any more information regarding the matter at this time."

The restrictions range in severity but I've read so far about the following:

Revocation of VIP privileges
12 table caps for MTT tournaments
4 table caps for cash games
1 table cap for cash games
Outright bans for HU regs
Outright bans from the poker tables for some players (they were told they were still welcome to try their luck in the carbon casino)

Nobody has been able to correlate any criteria which would flag you for this, but the general pattern is that you are a consistent winner who has actually cashed out.

With the lengthy cash out times with merge and lack of cash out options. I would hate for any new player to deposit on this site, work hard to improve only to be restricted from reaching their full potential without just cause.

The general consensus: Merge impose a 4 table cap on everyone and embrace a recreational model, or put out the criteria for these table restrictions.

Clarification:

All players earn VIP points. All players can spend them on marquee tournaments (this is the only thing they can be spent on now, there are no more points for cash).


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Kahn

Thank you.
so I can use my checking account to buy bitcoin and then use the bit coin to buy into an online poker site in Maryland?. I am unfamiliar with bit coin how much would it cost me to be able to get a $50 bankroll?
and most importantly which site can I then use the bit coin to buy in for 50$?

Never mind... I figured everything out ..... Playing on betonline ...thanks

There are no online poker rooms "in Maryland," only online poker rooms that "service Maryland." With that said, the most popular bitcoin poker site is Seals With Clubs.


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Kahn

I would recommend coinbase.com because you're in the US. Signing up an account at coinbase will take you a few minutes and (afaik) you can even link your account to your bank account.

From there all you need is a bitcoin wallet. This is where the fun begins in being your own bank while at the same time paying nominal transaction fees (usually 0.00001 btc per transaction).

One of the best wallets is certainly the blockchain.com wallet. Again signing up will only take a minute and you're ready to go.

Once you've got your coinbase account setup and you've got a wallet you're ready to go. Simply buy bitcoin at coinbase, transfer them to your wallet and you can deposit at any btc poker site, buy stuff online and if you're lucky you'll be able to buy a beer in your neighborhood.

Note, you can also transfer btc between coinbase and a poker site. However, the whole point of using a decentralized currency is being your own bank. Thus, most bitcoin users keep their coin in their own wallet. Cause it's only peer-to-peer if you actually send it to me, not coinbase

$50 would get you approx 0.11 btc according to http://preev.com/

For more info about bitcoin also see:
https://www.weusecoins.com/en/

So how long can we expect Carbon, Bovada, etc to be around? Would the same powers that banned Stars and Tilt do the same to the sites that currently allow US players to play?

No way to know for sure, but a few things to consider:

1) It should be harder to shut the new sites down because they are not operating on dot com's

2) Poker is becoming legal and legislated in more parts of the US possibly making it less of a target in general

3) None of the new sites are as big as Stars or Tilt were before also making them less of a target

4) Even if they do go after one or more sites again, there will always be more waiting to replace them IMO

Regarding bitcoins and playing online, the currency is traded similar to the stock market, right? That means the value of your bitcoins and wallet today is different than tomorrow or next year and it moves a lot from what I understand. So, won't your poker balance fluctuate a LOT even if you're consistently winning? In theory, could you double your bankroll after a year and still be even if bitcoins lost half their value?

These are valid answers, however, the more corect answer is that the sites you mentioned do not operate anything like FTP/Stars/AP/UB did. Their payment processing is done in a far different manner and seemingly not as easily attacked by jailing one loudmouth payment processor.

Bitcoin trades like the FX (currency) markets. And yes your scenario is possible. Alternatively one could lose playing poker, bitcoin value could rise, and the nominal value of one's remaining bitcoins relative to fiat money could be greater than it was beforehand.

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Kahn

My guess is at least a year or two, while California gets its affairs in order, but I'd suspect we might see some more attempts to take sites down sometime after that. However, they could be largely ignored due to the fact that they won't be allowed into the legal US market, and as kahn said, it's going to be harder to take these sites down.

You're right.

Like Khan already said it's like Forex (FX) trading. You purchase bitcoin just like you would buy Euro or any other currency and you sell it just the same.

One thing to consider here is that you obviously don't want to hold on to your coins (or your winnings for that matter) for a "very" long time to avoid losing a percentage of your roll with the market going short (rate going down).

At the same time you should consider that A) the btc rooms are processing very quickly and B) processing fees for btc are nominal (0.00001 btc). This means that even "if" btc loses 5-7% on the market, you're still coming out ahead opposed to paying the processing fees of (some) US facing rooms.

However, most of the people that believe in bitcoin and/or btc poker usually hold on to their coin. The last time I sold a "bunch" of coins was at the peak of $1,010 late last year and those I had bought early 2013 for about $24 a pop.

Today I manage by "btc roll" by keeping an eye on the moving average of bitcoin and I always cash out any winnings instantly. I estimate the moving average to be $550 per coin and as long as the exchange is between $450 and $650 all is good.

I think there is no problem to seize any domain name, even not .com since ICAAN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) that coordinates the domain name system is located in Los Angeles, CA.

And the reason why they haven't shut all US-friendly rooms down could be that they are simply waiting for these rooms to grow bigger (to seize bigger funds) and collecting evidence.

Of course they will but we can't be sure that our funds will be returned as it was in Stars/FT case. But there was UB case also...

Funny how a guy with 5 total posts and joined this forum this month can be soo correct on matters like this. hahaha

What options does someone who resides in NY state have? Merge and bitcoin sites? Is that really all?

Check out full flush, and betonline for ny.

Merge is also available depending on zip code.

What about bovada I hav played since 07 when it was bodog and no problems withdrawing :

Bovada does not allow new players from NY. The existing players are limited to cash withdrawals and those can become problematic if players use them too often.

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Kahn

after registering for betonline just to check it out, did anyone have a sketchy guy that sounds like a 'tyrone' call them berating them for information? pretty sketch lol they also called on a block number 3 times before I answered.

Hey guys, recently moved to las vegas; as far as I know I can no longer play on carbon/winning poker network. Anyone know if nevada residents can plan on Bovada?

Bovada does not accept new NV accounts. Full Flush and SWC accept NV residents.

Carbon still one of the best options atm? The traffic is so much lower these days.

Meh, it depends what youre looking for. Bovada is better overall IMO but Merge takes the cake with rewards.

They ban winners and removed the rewards system on Merge, so they don't have that going for them anymore.

if you say what games and stakes you play we can give better feedback