Totally agree with your post. The truth is that the gov't totally missed the gravy train back in the early 2000's when it came to online gambling. IMO it was a combination of "gambling is evil and online poke is the crack of gambling" and the fact that this country puts people who severely lack foresight and adaptability in power.

Had the government done their homework they would have snap called legislation back in 2003 when they calculated the revenue it could produce. Stars and Tilt took off and by the time the government was even considering poker legislation they realized that they are so far behind there was no point of trying.

However as we all know Washington is full of stubborn people who desperately need money to run their courrupt and inefficient system. So in the name of corruption and inefficiency, the UIGEA was legislated and that got the ball rolling. The government will get on the gravy train even if it means turning it into a little gravy choo choo at the expense of 10 million Americans.

Exactly the point

Your earlier statement is correct: you're not good at analogies.

To appropriately apply the cigarette analogy, say that cigarettes became popular in the last ten years, but were not regulated. And then about five years ago a provision to ban the sale of cigarettes was hastily tacked on to a bill on a different subject. The sale of cigarettes was reduced, but was still carried on in the open by several prominent foreign smugglers. No sales tax, excise tax, or corporate income tax was ever paid in connection w/the sales.

Meanwhile, a group of domestic retailers who legally sell pipe tobacco in certain states with licensing get riled up that they are losing business to the smugglers. They would also like to get a piece of the cigarette action, if possible. While bills are pending in Congress to regulate cigarettes, federal law enforcement indicts several of the smugglers.

Does that mean the President (who by the way is a noted tobacco user) is against regulated cigarettes? No. It just means that federal officials are enforcing the laws on the books.

Before he was President, a guy by the name of Theodore Roosevelt was the police commissioner of New York. At the time, there was a blue law that banned the sale of alcohol in bars on Sunday. He thought it was a dumb law, but yet it was on the books, and he was in charge of enforcing the law. So he went out and starting busting the many establishments that openly violated the law. What happened? The law was changed, because everyone realized it was stupid to have a law on the books that wasn't enforced, especially when it was a law that no one really wanted.

I hope that the poker player community can stay focused on the task at hand and not fall prey to artisan attacks that lead to gridlock. We have a group of 12 members of Congress who are charged with closing the budget gap this fall. This is an excellent opportunity to make sure that we get a bill as a part of a deficit solution. The President will undoubtedly sign a bill that includes new revenue, and this is one source of new revenue that a lot of Republicans are in favor of. Please stay on message and make sure that the Super Committee hears your voice.

Regardless of whether I agree w/this, it has little relevance now. Get active and be a part of the movement to get a bill passed.

DD, it's not sensationalist. SP has had better opportunities to sensationalize stories in the past and has been on the conservative (and accurate) side every step of the way it seems.

Processors have cost FTP over 100m in the last two years. Checks are bouncing at Bodog, Cake and Merge.

And the segregation issue is not clear on Merge. Hero said segregate months ago, but since then many Merge skins refuse to use that word, they say separate not segregate (RPM, Lock, Carbon, two of which exclusively use the same Merge processing that Hero uses).

It doesn't mean the sky is falling, but it's certainly not "Lol SP is talking about clouds in a clear sky, those silly fools." This isn't G911 or Ayre's site, the reports on SP have been informative, accurate and without exaggeration thus far.

What has the DOJ said?

i hear what you're saying, but not everyone else thinks this way. i agree with the OP in the link at bottom when he basically states the same about poker throughout the thread.


[URL="http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/what-makes-you-think-online-poker-actually-legal-1049677/"]

Okay agree their past reports have been good and accurate but the point still remains that they clearly say it is unclear if there are any pending indictments for Merge or skins. I take that as we just don't know of any, so why should anyone assume there are.

My main point is all this article is saying is that there is pending DOJ action against Merge processors and as we all know this has happened all along. Remember only a couple of months ago My Wallet/Quick Tender funds were seized and as far as I know no one lost their money.

I'm certainly not going to go freaking out about losing my little roll but now if had a lot more I'd be slightly nervous.

Good follow up DD, no real argument there.

While I agree that seizing payment processors isn't as bad as it sounds. Its definitely not good news they are still coming after us.

Yeh, I know they are going after merge. Seeing as how merge is the only real place left to play what they are doing is coming after us.

Given how poorly things are already going I don't know how much more merge can take before they too give up on the US market. If there are major seizures and payment processing becomes even more difficult they may just leave.

people lost A LOT of money. Any money that was in transit was frozen in the United States. Any money that was QT/UMW was not seized, but they weren't exactly friendly with getting it to people (supposed to have a Euro denominated account in a foreign country). QT/UMW ran with a bunch of player money AND the government has a bunch of player money that was in transit.

EDIT: Using a 3rd party ewallet at this point is suicide to your bankroll. Sites will reimburse seizures up to the point they want to keep operating here and especially internationally. Ewallets have no reason to reimburse and instead chose to disappear.

Even if they focus on payment processors and don't go after Merge itself this time, it is only a matter of time before Merge either:

• leaves the market voluntarily; or
• gets indicted.

From what I heard, and I know someone who had money in transit during this seizure, I thought Merge reimbursed everyone's account. It's possible I missed something and some people weren't reimbursed if so that's sucks.

I totally agree using ewallets now is bankroll suicide. I also agree that I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before one of two things happen, either Merge get's indicted or gets tired of fooling with all this US BS. However, I think that's something we've all known all along. For now I'm doing what I've been doing - playing, praying and pushing for legislation.

This is the main thing to take from this thread, but, yet, soon we will have more threads on how we should oppose legislation because of some vague, obsolete, anti-government stance.

Merge did not have anything to do with UseMyWallet. Once the funds are on an ewallet, they are yours to deal with from that point forward.

Cake even processed a bunch of payouts to UMW/QT when it was quite clear something was going on. Those payouts were taking many weeks to months and then suddenly they processed a bunch of transactions RIGHT before UMW shut down. Sticking your customers in the back like that and all their other issues is just unbelievable.

this could have been UMW's doing and not cake's.

FFS merge's traffic is like 10k players max. is this REALLY the best thing the DOJ has to do with their time in the country with the most violent crime of any developed country? srsly wtf.

... and a terror alert in progress.

Maybe I'm losing my mind a bit but to me this could mean a greater chance of legalization happening sooner rather than later. Every site is being forced out now no matter the size and a lot of the forces that be are pushing some serious funding into it. Perhaps this is naive but the major domestic casino companies know roughly how many people were screwed over by this and how ready they are to get back to playing, and the longer they take to get their doors open the more online poker begins to fade as a fun, exciting, and money making business.

i agree that legislation is the dunk part of the alley-oop that is the united states takeover of online poker.

I enjoy your optimistic posts but don't fool yourself.

There is no grand scheme to pass federal legislation. The DOJ is merely enforcing laws and US-land based casinos are now trying to capitalize on the empty market. The fact that 99% of politicians don't care about poker should prove that this wasn't some orchestrated takeover from the powers that be.

edit: re-read your post and it now seems you and the above poster aren't advocating a conspiracy theory! sigh, it's late...

Say what?

There were rumblings about investigations and indictments for many many months before Black Friday.

Yep. My mind is going too.

I think this is something we can all agree on.

$ though, is probably why they do.

I don't recall anything that was considered DOJ sourced