CA bill made players criminals, playing on a unlicensed site was a misdemeanor, subject to 1 year in Jail and fine to something (whatever it is in CA).

Not comparable, and WA is far worse with felony charges possible.

That was much worse, maybe? .. We all accept that our money can be seized, but clawbacks after money withdrawn would be unacceptable. Its a close run, but I guess it is acceptable as written.

This passes 100% imo.....why? I knew I would have to stop playing on Merge the minute they lowered limit rake

In all seriousness I think I can get behind this bill, but I will play on Merge up until the day they pull out of USA or until I can play on a US regulated site regardless of when these provisions kick in.

I def think this gets done though.

Some is good analysis, some is flawed imho:

Nevada will drive federal regulation of online poker.

Certainly Nevada will be the first Benchmark Qualified Body, but I don't expect it to be the only one. The qualification that seems to position Nevada to stand alone is: "Demonstrated capabilities relevant to the online poker environment." However, I think that leaves plenty of room for interpretation as it doesn't exactly say that the regulatory agency has to have experience with online poker regulation, just that it has to have capabilities relevant to it. I think the door is open for NJ and CA at least to also qualify, if they want it.

Players get new level of protection.

Players will certainly see the kind of consumer protection that only regulation can bring. The bill covers this very well. Too well in one aspect, imo.

As was the case with the 2010 Reid draft bills, one of the provisions states that violations of site rules of play with the intent of gaining an unfair advantage will be illegal. This has two implications that I don't like:

1. Sites will have the power to set rules which determine what is criminal activity under Federal law.
2. What is criminally illegal under the Federal law will vary from site to site.

International player pools are off the table.

Yep. No door is left open for international pooling of players. At least probably. The wording is "there is no commingling of players, funds, or records" between a US site operated by a licensee and a foreign site operated by that licensee or an affiliate.

But what about between a US site operated by a licensee and a foreign site operated by some other company? And what exactly is commingling of players? Does that just mean player accounts for the US site operation and the foreign site operation have to be kept separated (e.g. no PTP transfers, no sharing of player account information), but playing at the same tables will be allowed?

It seems to me that the intent of this provision is to keep operations of the US licensees for US players completely separated from operations of any foreign site that the licensee runs, but not necessarily to bar combined player pools.

Unlicensed operators take on increased risk.

Very true. The door will be completely and unambiguously closed to any unlicensed site. But the QJ analysis doesn't go far enough in spelling out the related risk to US players.

While the feedback from Skallagrim regarding the "Bettor Forfeiture" provision spells out the legal reasoning why this provision is unlikely to result in seizure of player property beyond funds on account or in transit to or from an unlicensed site, the bottom-line truth is that no one can say that the wording of the provision does not literally state that other player property can be legally seized if traceable to online play at such a site. It takes interpretation of other statues, precedents and historical examples to come to such a conclusion, which is no guarantee that this new statute would not be enforced literally at some point or to fulfill someone's political agenda.

Players may not have many choices at first.

I think there will be plenty of choices and plenty of market competition. I don't see much in the way of barriers to entry to the market of offshore sites as service providers for the US casinos, except for those who operated US-facing sites post December 2006. It looks to me like all the licensing that is currently going forward in Nevada - multiple casinos with multiple service providers including offshore companies - will still qualify under this federal bill.

However, some of the site qualification limits may work against passage of the bill or participation by some states. My own state, Florida, is a good example. Here, the only facilities that would qualify to be licensed sites are the Indian casinos and the few pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties that are licensed for slot machines. The rest of the pari-mutuel facilities here, all of which run poker rooms, would be shut out as none of them meet the 250-table minimum to qualify. So Florida may be an opt out state, at least until the qualifications are eased, which will be at least two years after the first license is issued.

Of course, players in states that don't opt in will certainly not have choices.

Online poker will no longer be private.

Was it ever? There weren't ties to tax reporting so you could get away with income tax evasion, but I certainly never felt comfortable giving my personal information (like a copy of my driver's license or my credit card numbers) to an offshore operator.

Still, the invasion of privacy will certainly be much greater under the regulatory scheme laid out in this bill. What concerns me most are the use of biometric technologies for protection against underage gambling at each logon; and GPS technologies for location monitoring at each logon. Both would require hardware solutions, meaning you will have to have some hardware and software combo when you logon to play which verifies your identity and location, far beyond just a password, security questions and IP location. This is both an extensive invasion of privacy and a severe deterrent to participation by the casual player.

Cheating isn’t just an ethical issue anymore.

I like the way the bill treats cheating, except for my concerns stated above in regards to site rules.

Poker room revenue and promotional models could shift.

I think QJ is off base here. It looks to me like a site can deduct any bonus or promotional credit earned in relation to rake generated. So the promotional model will likely shift, but simply away from deposit bonuses and toward rake-related rewards (i.e. the more you play and generate rake, the bigger your bonuses).

To judge if I'm getting this right, here is the actually wording from the bill:
---------------

I am still undecided whether or not I support this bill. As before, the #1 sticking point for me is the wording of the forfeiture provision. I have no doubt that this provision could be worded so that it is clear that the only player property subject to forfeiture is money on account at the site, or in transit. So why isn't it worded that way?

Very substantive, thanks for the insight.

I could respond to this as you do to others with dismissive comments towards the player base you claim to represent and thinly veiled accusations of ulterior money driven motives.

Instead, I'll just let my comments stand on the merits, reiterate my thanks to Skall for his explanation, and second most of PXs excellent analysis.

Being from KY, I would argue Sen. Rand Paul will almost always vote for this bill, and McConnell would vote for it if he thought it would help the horse racing industry. Telling him Churchill Downs owns Bluff seriously is prolly enough to get a yes out of him.

Thanks and fair points all (I wrote the article for QJ).

My reading of the bill resulted a strong sense that Nevada would be the driving force due not only to the qualifications the bill requires, but also because Nevada is so far ahead of the game paperwork-wise and the bill does set a ticking clock. I do not think they will be the only game in town, but I think they will be the first / first ready and that other states might be tempted to boilerplate what NV does.

As a as the point about competition, I tried to hedge with the title of that section. There seems to be a good amount of potential protection for the big commercial casinos, but there also seem to be workarounds depending on who is issuing licenses. I don't think the bill kills competition, but I think it tilts the scales in favor of a smaller initial market.

Finally, I may have gotten the wording wrong on the last point. The sentence is pretty thick. I read it as stating that promotions can't be taken into account - e.g., they can't be deducted from the gross. But, I see now that your reading is probably the right one. In that case, it will be interesting to see what promotions rooms try to cram through the poker sites to offset rake.

Either way, I think the analysis about rooms looking to draw more non-rake revenue from players is still reasonable, as that revenue escapes the 16% charge.

Thanks, Gordo. It's good to have these discussions. Your work for the poker community is appreciated.

Sending QJ edits to reflect your correct reading of that last part.

Because the majority of your US Senators do not want to explicitly create an exception designed solely for the purpose of limiting the liability of those who play on an unlicensed site. Neither do the US commercial interests.

But neither do they want to put players at risk.

So they compromise and put your money at risk.

And they prefer to be somewhat vague as to the limits that your money is at risk. They prefer that because the want to draft the law in a way in that makes sure that whatever money the DOJ does get its hand on it can keep.

Lawmakers like this generally tend to think that any specific exception they make will become the proverbial exception that swallows the rule.

In plain English, they have no intent to write a law that targets players on unlicensed sites; but equally, in no way will they carve out an explicit comfort zone for players who play on illegal unlicensed sites.

Politics.

And the politics is not really on our side here. It is not really possible to advocate for an affirmative right to keep whatever money you managed to have gotten in the past (and after the bill passes) from playing on an illegal site. The best you can do is make sure nothing specifically authorizes or requires such a result.

But, as I have posted above, all the practical considerations, and a few of the legal ones, suggest strongly that this will not become a commonplace issue.

Skallagrim

You mean like the "they will never go after poker only" or that the UIGEA did not prevent "withdrawing" (the regs), only deposits.

Seems both of these were not the case (even though I disagreed) and yes, I believe there will be a few examples made of some players if this bill passes with the player penalty of seizure.

obg

The way to get change in Congress is to tell them we want it. That way, PPA would be empowered to lobby for all the things you're complaining about now. Yet somehow, you keep posting that the way to get what we want is to withhold support and not contact Congress.

I'm glad you're happy that you didn't contact Congress and that you were pleased to post that here.

Nope, I've wrote to Congress for years ctuslly. I just didnt want to lend support to this specific bill sight unseen, which is what a generic statement of support for poker did in recent weeks.

We either didnt have leverage or had already used whatever leverage we had, the PPA wasnt interested in using player support as leverage for making changes in the bill but rather wanted to roll the dice that the bill would be acceptable and traded off the chance it wouldnt be in order to maximize the chances of any bill passing, or the negotiation strategy is not well thought out.

Totally cool if people were willing to make the tradeoff. I'm just expressing my opinion on a messageboard.

Just skimmed the bill; it doesn't look that bad for players.

But, on principle, the 16% online poker activity fee is pretty offensive. What with the fee, ordinary income tax on operators, and income tax on winners, government is going to wind up with something that approaches (but is probably less than) half the rake. Pretty gross.

The U.S. only has easy access to domains controlled by Verisign. Even if the U.S. can convince .eu and other more mainstream country domain controllers to cave there are plenty of countries that will have no problem allowing U.S. facing sites to use their domains. Antigua immediately comes to mind and some sites already use .ag. There are quite a few island and Central American nations who have come to depend on this revenue that would not care. I suppose the domains could get blocked in the U.S. but that still does not solve the problem.

As long as there is demand for offshore betting services it will continue and workarounds will exist. Sports betting could go back to phones if they had to. Casino and poker software could easily change the server's IP address on a regular basis. I think Western Union, Moneygram, and other types of similar services would have to be forced out of business to put an end to the offshore gambling business.

That's not true at all. PPA negotiated and lobbied for all the player-friendly things you see there.

You totally don't understand what I am saying. Which is fine.

This bill is garbage. Lucky for us, it won't even come close to passing

Define close. Considering there is at least a semi reasonable chance it passes, even if the odds are against it, some might argue its already close to passing right now.

This needs more love imo

Are poker players desperate enough to settle for a bill that has some major flaws? Consider that it's exponentially harder to edit a bill than it is to put one into law. What if this bill was it? What if the US used this bill for next 10 years or more? Would you be happy?

The total % the US gets from sites/customers is pretty gross. The gov prolly gets up to but not more than half? and for what? A secure site to play on? Wow. Talk about desperation.

Seizure of player funds and assets is scary. I don't care if the gov hasn't used that power in the past. The fact that this bill gives them the RIGHT to, is scary. This is asking for trouble.

Invasion of privacy is another big one. GPS navigation and IP tracking all for the sake of security and underage gambling prevention?

While other jurisdictions might not cooperate on purely internet gambling offenses, this bill also makes sites raking/juicing US bets guilty of tax evasion (presuming they don't write the IRS checks for 50% of the rake).

Tax evasion is also an extraditable offense in many jurisdictions, so while I concede there will always be fly-by-night operations, the 'big name' US facing sites that most people already consider too sketchy to risk depositing on will leave the market.

A sportsbook can make a decent profit while still staying under the radar - a few dozen bets a day could make it worth keeping the lights on, whereas poker requires a critical mass that can't be achieved without exposure.

you're gonna have to go to the vet to get yourself microchipped if you don't wanna risk losing your house in process of playing online poker in the US.

I say pop in an RFID chip while you've got the machine handy, I'm sick of carrying around all these damned keys.

That's actually a great (selling) point for this bill I hadn't considered, on the surface, non-regulating States will only look at the ~5% kickback they will get from deposits, but the additional kickback for States that tax income could help sway some votes.


If they wanted to make examples they would have done it before, when it would not have looked protectionist since there is no US market, how bad would it look politically for them to start going after player winnings (assuming there are any) after this bill passes?

This whole 'player penalties are unacceptable' mantra I find ironic, since it was the PPA that created this boogeyman to scare players away from supporting intrastate poker bills, even when they supported intrastate poker in NV - the first state to make it a crime to play on unlicensed sites.



This keeps being said, so I'll have to keep refuting it, they can't declare money dirty - which they have to do in order to make it subject to forfeiture - and then give it a safe haven once it reaches a player.

It wouldn't matter if the money was donated to the President's reelection campaign or children with cancer, they can't designate a safe haven for dirty money, because doing so creates an obvious point for laundering the dirty money.

A site owner would simply need to get his 'dirty' money into the hands of a player in order to make it beyond the reach of the government, hell, someone laundering drug money could simply chip dump it to a player on an unlicensed site to 'clean' his money.

The money is either dirty or it isn't, there are no safe harbors in civil forfeiture, that's why it's worded that way.

If you were paying your taxes the government was already getting ~25% from the players end, so it seems quite justifiable that they get an additional 25% out of the casino/site's take - no sympathy from me.

The government already had the RIGHT to seize player winnings, every check received in the mail in the name of a false company and cashed could have been used as evidence for a seizure warrant, as a Travel Act violation, but the DOJ bent over backwards to construe prosecutions under other laws that allowed players to be held harmless.

What right to gambling privacy? Does your local casino allow you to play poker wearing a mask? To place bets without knowing who you are, where you are or how old you are?

I wonder about this provision. I don't see how the fed govt can dictate to the states what the procedure is down to that level of detail. For example, I thought in FL when the Gov first signed off on the compact with the Seminoles, the State Supreme Court ruled that allowing additional types of gambling would require a change to existing FL law, and therefore the FL legislature had to approve it.

So if a FL law has to be changed/repealed in order for the state to opt-in, I don't see how the Feds can dictate what is required (i.e. type of majority/governors signature, etc). There are state constitutions to deal with that I would think the states will say override any bill passed by congress.

Thank you! Now I get it.

Simply put, the forfeiture provision is a way to make play on illegal sites a risk for the players without making it an outright crime.

In the McDermott bill, players were equally liable for the 50% penalty site tax on illegal sites, which I thought was ludicrous (making the player liable for the illegal actions of the site). The provision in this Reid/Kyl bill makes a lot more sense, and is much better than a provision similar to the CA bill, wherein players are subject to criminal punishment. I can live with it. (That doesn't mean I no longer think seizure of player property beyond poker account money would not be possible.)

Now on to my next major concern: biometric and GPS technologies for identity and location verification at each logon. See any way these provisions can be implemented without requiring special hardware that scans you for identity and location?

Biometrics is the most concerning, imo. Here is an article with a synopsis of the pros and cons. What I don't like about it:

1. Hardware is required, which can be a strong deterrent to participation of the casual player.

2. You are entrusting your unique and unchangeable biometric information to private companies, putting at risk both your privacy and identity security. (If your password is compromised, you can change it. You can't do this with biometrics.)

The only implementation of biometrics that I can think of which would address these concerns would be use of voice recognition, wherein the player chooses and speaks a specific password. The site should be restricted to retaining the biometrics of only that password. This could be rather easily implemented with a dial-in phone number option, requiring only use of a telephone or a computer microphone at the player's option. (And GPS could go along with that if using a smartphone with GPS.)

Anyone happen to know more about what is being thought about for this bill as regards biometrics and GPS?