Its perfectly understandable that you would see any POS bill as an improvement considering you dont even play online poker. I dont blame you, you have nothing to lose.[QUOTE]



Despite your repeated claims that this it true and Drews well intentioned speech, you are wrong. We established its true for you, its not true for many others.

But we can agree to disagree, no hard feelings. I enjoy hearing others opinions. The possible irony that this bill very well could actually do exactly what you inaccurately state is happening now, leaving citizens in 49 states without the option to play internet poker, was worth the exchange.

Agreed, enough said.

And now you want to pass a bill that closes the door on all Internet gambling in the US including online poker except for those states that can be convinced to opt in to a federal system with limited revenue (states can't adjust their revenue stream), no state market control (states can't determine who is eligible to be a licensed entity, e.g. which of their current licensed gambling operators, and never their state lottery) and limited player access (no international player pools and the required use of hardware solutions for age and identity verification).

Come on.

Im not for the bill, but a thought popped into my head regarding the geo location thing.

They could require a phone number, land line or cell, to log into the site. You call in, enter numbers on your screen into the phone, go thru a couple words of voice recognition (likely your first/middle/last name). Not sure if the sites would have access to phone tracing, but if they could, its near unbeatable.

I got the voice/name idea from the current house arrest system most states use. They could randomly call you while you are logged on and grinding, have you say a few numbers(or numbers pop into the chat box on screen), and your name or something, kind of like Stars used to do with the bot detection.

Apparently the entire poker community has lost it's collective mind once again, as it seems to do once every two years, and Mr. Drew is the one that found it.

Yes! I hate gambling, if it was up to me lotteries would be illegal even offline, it's just the government (or casino) preying on the weak - let it be poker only, let us be the ones preying on the weak.

As for closing the door on States setting up monopolies, yeah, that was the whole idea behind chasing this Federal rainbow - why you and everyone else wants to slam on the brakes every time the pot of gold is within reach I'll never understand.

International pools? They would come, France, Spain and Italy can't even agree yet on how to do it, but they will - if we build it, they will come.

Fortunately according to the poll less than 15% want to slam on the brakes, though their voices somehow make it seem like a larger number. I suspect the 15% is slightly inflated by ROW players upset they will not have access to freshly hatched US fish. In my experience at least 10% of people will come down on either side of any issue, so it's not really a big deal.

I just keep wondering why many on this forum had completely different expectations regarding a federal bill than I did over the years. I had lost the rose colored outlook on some kind of quasi-utopian poker market several years ago when Barney Frank bills were getting ZERO legislative traction and the far Right was spitting in our faces. Apparently are some are still hanging onto this pipe dream, even after all these years.

I feel sorry for these folks. They should probably stop paying attention to this issue tbh. This bill is pretty much what I've been fighting for for the last 3 years. Realistic expectations should have tipped lots of you off years ago that we were always going to start off with a fractured market. We were always going to have all sorts of ancillary bans on other gambling activities we didn't want to. We were always going to have no legitmate access to unlicensed poker once legislation passes.


I guess pragmatism is just a tough pill for some to follow.

If there was zero chance of regulated poker other than this bill, then almost all of us would be in favor of it.

But with the wire act ruling, several states already passing online gambling bills, talk of interstate compacts between states for online poker, there is PLENTY to be hopeful for.

In 2010, we had none of that.

+∞

I've received a lot of hate on this forum for questioning support of a bill like Barton's that had severe Constitutional conflicts, I don't trust Harry Reid or any Republican to write an online gambling prohibition with a poker carve-out.

Carve-outs can be severed, leaving us with nothing but a strengthened internet gambling prohibition, but this carve-out is constitutionally tight, even the prohibition backs off States rights sufficiently to mitigate litigation concerns (States can still do internet gambling, so long as it's a closed loop and they don't use the US financial system).

This bill is - as you said - as good as it's going to get, without being "too good" which would be much, much worse.

Going into this battle a year and a half ago, I never had expectations that a "perfect" federal bill would be developed. There are too many interests pulling in too many directions (federal interests, state interests, casino interests, tribal interests, anti-gambling interests, and player interests, etc.). And within each sub-group, there are conflicting interests. I'm not even touching on other groups looking at full-out casino-style gaming or lotteries.

Looking at the Reid/Kyl bill, it seems to be about the best we can hope for regarding a federal bill. imo, the fastest route toward a large player pool and consistent across-the-board regulations is federally. If this is taken state-by-state without a federal framework, there will be hard-fought battles in each state just to begin an intrastate market, and then more to begin to link the intrastate markets to an interstate market. I think this would take much longer then the blackout period. Much, much longer, and again without any consistent regulations.

I view this federal bill as a beginning. I agree that it isn't perfect, but it is a solid foundation to begin the process of an online poker market in the US. So, I remain in support of this bill.

What's so hard about this for me is that this isn't about our rights. Clearly, we can play poker online in the United States as I've donked numerous SnGs over the past few.

If it was about our freedoms, this would be an EASY fight...nothing less than us being able to play online poker would be acceptable...but we can play online poker.

Instead, we are fighting about whether it's going to be better than Merge/Cake/Revolution essentially.

And, this bill clearly takes away Merge/Cake/Revolution. That's fine, but does it replace it with something better? I can wait up to a few years for something better, but the longer I wait, the better it should be.

Aren't states, if they opt in to this bill as is, basically agreeing to have those outlined in the bill as licensees? Sure they don't get a line item veto or something of that nature but if they don't like it they won't opt in.

Although that could be a reason to not like the bill as states may be less likely to opt in. But I would imagine it would be one of the smaller issues for stopping a state from getting on board.

I play on Merge almost every day and glad to have this option still, but I just would not be comfortable to invest time and money to actually depend on these remaining sites available for total income. It can take up to 3 days just to get one 180m SNG to fill. Most of the MTTs, other than the majors, are lucky to fill to a couple of hundred players on a good day, if that. Trying to grind SNGs, you may be lucky to get a couple of tables filled in a specific game at a time, other than hypers.

I'm not happy with what we have now, and I want better. I don't see how the games can grow much under the gray area we are in now.

If anything, your post proves just how hard it is to eradicate our game. when there is a will, there is a way. Once the DOJ returns my FT monies i will have been playing poker non-stop since UIGEA passage, including post Black Friday, and I will have lost $0 to seizures or rogue sites stealing my monies. The sky is not falling for people who want to play poker right now.

With that said, I support a legal framework and believe things can only get better for us post legislation. I am only in opposition of player penalties. I will keep playing on Merge until my state opts in, and the PPA should not be supporting any bill that imposes penalties on me for doing so.

Exactly. If this other door to state-by-state had not opened, I would be supporting the Reid/Kyl bill despite its serious shortcomings.

In very many cases, votes on state bills regarding any gambling issues will turn on the lobbying of in-state gambling interests. This bill has specific qualifications which greatly limit the eligibility of existing gambling enterprises. States like NV and NJ where the gambling market is dominated by large casino enterprises are shoo-ins to opt in. Many other states, even those with large gambling markets, are not.

Take CA for instance. There you have many small tribal entities and smaller poker rooms who have been looking to participate as licensed entities or at least licensed conglomerates. The may well be able to keep an opt in from happening, just has they have been able to keep an intrastate bill which excluding their interests from happening.

Back when the federal bills didn't outlaw all intrastate Internet casino gambling, it looked to me like those state vested interests could get their share of the market as intrastate operators, while the state opted in to a federal licensing program for just online poker. Now, under the Reid/Kyl bill, Internet poker will be the only game in town and those vested interest in many cases will oppose it for their state to limit competition to their operations. Similarly, with state lotteries excluded from expanding into Internet gaming, even for in-state scratch-offs or vlts, they are likely to oppose opting in to protect their market share.

I also think that many gambling enterprises were looking to a federal bill for licensing online poker as a stepping stone to eventual licensed online casino gambling. The more severe limits in this bill on such expansion make that a much tougher battle as well, taking away another incentive to support opt ins.

So, I think the issues for state opt ins created by the provisions of this bill are not minor. The state battles will have to be fought with or without this bill, of course. I just don't think, given all the negatives of this bill, we should go with this bill over the state-by-state route.

Neither choice state or fed is a good choice, players are choosing lesser of to evils, but state is a hard slog. In ca bills have been introduced last two years, there is no real opposition to poker by the parties. However the existing casinos are all over the place. Neither attempt made a committee vote in one house much less both floor votes and signature.

Tribes want it all or want to block inet gaming for as long as possible. Tracks want a piece and tribes say no. State wants money, in CA the license fee I think would represent 20% of revenue and big start up costs.

Moving a bill in ca is like federal actions slow and all about special interests, worse criminal penalty for playing offshore. CA rake by law is flat not percentage and may not work with other states sites for interstate pool. Blackout is about the same but no action until next June to start with.

The point is optin / opt out is way easier to lobby and attempt to get completed over full bill creation. You may win or you may lose but at least u know where to move.

It is now incredibly hard to get money on and off(believe me I know, being from Maryland over the last few weeks my ability to get wire transfers has been taken way so cashing it out is crazy hard). We are down to our last few sites which are all terrible and have absolutely zero security and we have no idea how safe our money is there. Less and less fish are playing as they cant get money on easily and when they do win they realize its very hard to get it out. The sky is most definitely falling, as every year more and more sites/payment processors are being shut down. There is no guarantee that your monies are safe right now. I don't know how people still think that with no regulation or going the state route that the status quo will still stay the same.

i don't think anybody wants or thinks the status quo will stay the same.

I am only on the no side for lack of a better choice since it is basically yes/no. I am probably more neutral than either choice. I suspect there are others that don't like enough of the Reid/Kyl bil to not support it but also not be completely opposed to it either. I will not be upset if it passes but I am also not going to be upset if we have to gamble and see what the states come up with. At least then players in states guaranteed to stay out of ipoker would not get completely shut out while this sorted itself out on a state level.

Someone else made a great point about California rake. The house cannot take a percent of the pot, it must be a flat amount. This may cause a problem both directions or at least cause a pooling issue if it goes state by state. This just goes to prove my point that neither side is ideal. This is what happens when you have 50 different interests trying to come up with one idea.

No. There is no derivative asset forfeiture in this bill for players. Players are still not criminals under federal law.

Assuming, and it is still an assumption, that this bill will enable the DOJ to seek forfeiture of the $200 sent to you by "unlicensed site A" the most the DOJ can seek is the $200, not the car you bought with a $200 down payment or the business you started with the $200 or anything else like that. The absolute worst, and this is huge stretch, is they put a lien on your car in the amount of $200 because they cannot find your cash.

Not the first time we have seen fear mongering, nor will it be the last.

It is clear certain folks have decided that the way to analyze the situation is to assume every possible bad interpretation of the R/K bill will in fact occur, and conversely assume that every possible good development in getting state legislation will also occur.

If you do this it may make your analysis "easy" - but it will also make your analysis totally divorced from reality.

Skallagrim

So Skall, you personally guarantee the government will never come after a player for more than the amount taken off of the unlicensed site if this version of Reid/Kyl passes?

Yes. You've got to start somewhere. I want to be able to play quality online poker before I'm 100.

Exactamundo!

The state by state route is much longer, harder fight where we end up with many of the same provisions in the Reid/Kyl bill...if we even get online poker. Keep in mind, of the four states that have made some form of online gambling explicitly legal, only two have had poker at all and only one is poker only.

Yes, on two fronts. First, the current status quo is going to continue to devolve. Second, in a regulated market, you get to play with these things I like to call "recreational players".

Don't be stupid. If you want to add to the discussion, I'm all ears. If you're going to act like a 12 year old....

If it absolutely can't happen, Skall will say so.

If it can happen, its certainly not fear-mongering.

Almost all of us are in favor of the bill.

Sometimes you really are a jackass.

What about my first post did you not understand? Perhaps I need to educate you about federal forfeiture? If so, why not simply say that rather than play this game of "personal guarantees."

A basic explanation:

When an asset has become tainted and subject to forfeiture, the feds get to seize and keep that asset. The do not get to seize and keep everything that has ever touched that asset. Being in contact with a tainted asset is not grounds for forfeiture.

When a person engages in illegal activity (and, because you will forget, let me remind you that no mere player is ever acting illegally ever under this bill), the "proceeds" of that illegal activity become subject to forfeiture. "Proceeds" includes not merely the money used or gained directly from the illegal activity, but also the assets obtained as a result of what the criminal does with that money. Sell drugs get $1K - use that $1K to but a painting - artist dies and painting goes up in value to $50K - the result is the government gets to forfeit the painting and sell it for $50K without giving you a penny precisely because it is still part of the "proceeds" of the illegal activity.

Once the drug dealer sells the painting to a legitimate 3rd party, however, the painting itself is no longer "proceeds" and if it continues to grow in value the government is not entitled to forfeit its increased value.

This "basic" explanation is already too long. I do not plan on writing a book covering all the details of Federal Forfeiture law here in a 2+2 post. Besides, such books have already been written.

So please, 1) do some research on "proceeds of illegal activity" and/or 2) try to think of any asset in the US that has not at one time or another been in the hands of someone doing something illegal - according to your thinking, everything not on that list already belongs to the government, they just haven't taken it yet.

Skallagrim