Sites knew they were operating illegally..esp when u mask checks and deposits as something else then what is was...they should of given disclaimers as to said risk..as for the poker players..u did hear over and over about ftp grand jury right...or did we decide to not believe the source..guess gambling 911 was right

From the story in AmLaw Daily:

Barry Boss at Cozen is potential FTP counsel, Mary Jo White at Debevoise is potential Stars counsel, and Jeff Ifrah is Bitar's counsel.

i don`t know but and i want know

Great news for those of us wanting our money back

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...m5kHw3H4&hl=en

Good News for US costumers, but just FT and PS.

http://blogs.forbes.com/nathanvardi/...ir-money-back/

Yes that is a step in the right direction ...

This is great thanks!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willful_blindness

Willful blindness (sometimes called ignorance of law, willful ignorance or contrived ignorance or Nelsonian knowledge) is a term used in law to when an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable.

I am posting here because I am shocked and frustrated how the banks yet again fool everybody. I figured the economic events of the past few years would prevent people from being naive in regards to what banks are capable of. I was wrong about that given the media and people here are yet again believing what the DOJ is telling them.

In a day and age of terrorism and the patriot act it would be impossible for a bank to process online gambling transactions for a LARGE SITE and not know it. Here are the reasons why:

1. Banks scrutinize wire transfers mainly out of terrorism concerns. A processor for FULL TILT or POKER STARS would be wiring in and out millions of dollars WEEKLY (sometimes daily) to known online gambling havens such as Cyprus. How much time needs to pass before this alone wakes the bank up to what is really going on?

2. American customers on a daily basis would be informing the bank or other banks that the transactions are for Poker Stars or Full Tilt. If an ACH is involved then there are bound to be ACH problems where customers would call their banks to discuss their transactions. Given the large volume the banks would receive DAILY calls where the true nature of the transactions would be openly discussed. If the processor is doing checks then customers would be disclosing to banks what the checks were for when they go to cash them. No matter how discrete most poker players are there will always be an abundance of those who are not.

3. Given the massive volume a full tilt and/or poker stars processor would be doing, at what point does the bank do a further due diligence? If the DOJ is saying they are pretending its FLOWER transactions (or whatever) then I would assume documentation to back that up would be asked for such as giving the bank URLS to the sites they claim they are doing business with. It would take the bank no time at all to determine if the transactions were from that site or not. I can guarantee you the banks didnt ask for any of this even after tens of millions were processed. If they were concerned it was terrorism then for SURE they would but when they KNOW the transactions are really for online gambling they turn a blind eye.

4. To further backup point #3 at what point does the bank think "Hey these guys are immediately processing millions a day for FLOWERS, HMMMMM". Common sense has to come into play at some point because VERY few businesses see the equivalent volume on a daily basis to online Poker. Also even if "Flowers" do have massive echeck volume, would a brand new business immediately get such volume? If they won a major "flower" contract would that not be asked for by the bank? Otherwise why would this new corporation with zero track record get such "flower" volume? I know for a fact poker processors ramp up volume QUICKLY especially compared to other ecommerce businesses. Most processors would just give a general description of their business anyway versus being so specific. This would be another reason why a due diligence would be necessary especially after 100 million dollars or so was processed.

People this is all so obvious. It would be absolutely impossible to process for Poker Stars and/or Full Tilt and not have the banks know what it was within a few days due to instant volume spikes and customers blabbing.

Therefore banks who processed online gambling transactions either knew up front what it was but wanted everything to appear like they didn't OR they found out within a short period of time and were willfully blind. I believe the banks who processed these transactions not only did this because they knew it would be too political for them to be prosecuted but also because they truly believe online poker is a game of skill. They also knew they are no federal laws prohibiting online Poker. The bottom line is they wanted to makes lots of money and knew they would get away with it if trouble arose. They also probably didn't think the DOJ would waste resources like they have.

The bottom line it was a WIN WIN for the banks and they got away with it yet again if you look at the media and posts on the forums. On another note I find it hilarious that banks that openly processed the transactions are now "BRIBE TAKERS". I understand the press buying that story but why do the people here so easily believe that? Perhaps these banks studied the laws and came to the same conclusions about online poker that most of you believe? Instead of taking a bribe they perhaps believed what they were doing was legal? Now these people who tried to follow the rules will be punished versus the ones who chose to be willfully blind. Ironic.

Take everything the DOJ says with a grain of salt people. You are all being played.

wire was req'd last week. Thought it was gone forever.

Thank goodness. Still don't like the closing the sites, but I respect that our gov't didn't keep the $$$.

Gotta go pay (late) taxes.

glgl all

are you an American?

I guess you are from the "our gov't" part

Yes, "fraud" should mean that someone was "defrauded", but that did not happen here. All these charges flow from the premise that government is telling us what we can and can not do with or own money. If the government was not trying to do that, nobody would have committed bank fraud.

Just checked and www.pokerstars.com has still not been returned to the site.

Once they make the change it'll take a while for the DNS to propagate, it's not instant.

Yep, MO, stl US. Stars had sent the wire last Wednesday and it got held up by all this. THought it was gone forever.

$41k is no laughing matter. so glad this part of it is over.
.... but what do I need a bankroll for anyways lol.

...but this part of my money was never seized at all... because it was a bank wire maybe it didn't travel through normal routes? I don't know, but usually the money comes much sooner. If they send me an email saying they sent it buy wire, it's usually there pretty soon. This one took a week, so I imagine it was held up, at least in part, by this thing.

I forgot to mention that banks welcomed cover stories such as "flowers" or "jewlery" because it gave them further deniability. If they analysed these flimsy cover stories they would easily see they were a sham especially given the massive volume and strange constant large wires to and from Europe they were seeing. Given they knew it was online poker they did not bother to do further due diligence so they could have their plausible deniability.

Fedup those are great points. There is zero chance the banks didn't know where the money was coming from. Pays to have most of Congress on your payroll.

All correct but this section is based upon the "definitions" in the preceeding section which defines what activity constitutes betting / wagering.

I still stand on my 2006 position where fantasy or educational or contests are not betting / wagering as not considered B / W thus are not covered here.

Poker IS a contest.

obg

Don't you think that US regulated poker will end up just like horseracing? Sure you can do it, but the takeout is so huge that the game is unbeatable. The incentives for a heavily regulated industry lead to rake increases (gotta pay the man, lobbying, etc).

What a miserable thought, to go from winning poker player to horseracing degenerate loser. No offense horseracing enthusiasts.

Yes UNLESS
We saved united after this fight and continue to fight to keep taxes reasonable.

I just find it odd that the U.S. says it's okay for Americans to look at [porn]. The U.S. says it's okay for Americans to own adult porn sites and make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS off of it.

Yet...............IT'S ILLEGAL TO PLAY ONLINE POKER FOR 1c/5c MICRO LIMITS. This just seems crazy. It's okay to drink Alcohol in the U.S., yet people DIE EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR GETTING HIT BY A DRUNK DRIVER. It's okay to smoke tobacco, yet, PEOPLE DIE EVERY DAY FROM LUNG CANCER...EVEN BY SECOND HAND SMOKE!!!!

But the fact that it's legal for me to pay $24.99 a month online to a webmaster to see some girl's naked [body], and the webmaster is making millions, yet I can't play poker for micro stakes (1 cent/5 cents) is ******* STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Internet Porn is regulated and the webmasters pay taxes on thier earnings every year. Do the same thing with online poker...regulated that shiz in the U.S. and have the owners pay taxes every year!!!!!!!!!!

In Tampa strip clubs you can legally suck on boobies.

Boobies are awesome.

This is what I am most worried about. Simple laws of economics says they will continue to raise the cost of playing until there is an adverse effect on the player pool. Who knows how high rake can possibly go, not to mention taxes (which we already overpay by at least 10%)

Horse racing has always, historically, had higher takeouts/rakes than poker. In the golden age of horse racing, when crowds of 50,000 used to regularly show up at Aqueduct and Hollywood Park, the takeout was 17 percent, far far higher than ANY poker games (even on cruise ships and in France). Horse racing has thus ALWAYS been a game where you have needed a tremendous skill advantage to beat the game.

So no, I don't expect that poker will end up like that. There are already many brick and mortar poker games throughout the world where rake is low enough that the games are beatable. There are some where the rake is too high. I expect the regulated world of online poker to shake out the same way.