You're entitled to your opinion, obviously, but is this bolded statement a joke?

Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. It was noted that the aide's boss may accept good legislation. We have to remember that congress is out of session from 04/18 - 05/01. It makes sense that the DOJ chose 04/15 to crackdown, since congress would be gone for the next two weeks afterward.

The PPA said 70,000 messages were sent. I have to believe that kind of volume and he'll raising will prompt some kind of action when congress comes back.

I agree. The problem is most players are recreational players and don't have time to go to DC and rally. Especially with players getting their funds, very little will be done in the future (I could be wrong, that's just my opinion)





To start off I thank you for your service and the **** you had to go through.

I along with many others do not believe in what we are "fighting" for however. If it was something other than what it currently is, and I believed in it, I wouldn't hesitate to enlist (and I'm sure many many others would do the same.)
That aside I disagree with much of what you say though. Only a minority of people see the corruption, this minority does not have the power to sway people who already have a "set mind" and this minority does not have enough power to vote them out of office. As for leaving and moving the country, it's a long process that is not guaranteed and I'm sure if it was easy many people would leave.

I respect your opinion, but the fact is that financial transactions originating in the USA to any poker site (in the USA or not) will not be legal until the UIGEA is repealed. Given that all federal legislation passed by Congress is sourced out of the House of Representatives (currently controlled by the GOP), there is slim to no chance of the UIGEA being repealed within the next 18 months.

How do you get that it is "sourced" out of the House? Legislation can originate in the Senate too, yes? Granted, it's been awhile since I watched Schoolhouse Rock, so I could be wrong.

I have no problem with people voicing their opinions. I agree with you that there is nothing more American than that. There is also nothing more American then taking up some of your civic duties and participating in the system that governs you. That's what the forefathers intended. If you just choose only to voice your opinion on a poker forum out in cyberspace, then nothing is ever going to change. That was the point of my reply. I don't think the founders of this country would have much sympathy for a group of folks who think their rights have been violated by the government, but then couldn't be bothered to get up from behind their computers to do anything about it.

I stand corrected. Either house of Congresss can introduce legislation, but only the House of Representatives can introduce revenue legislation, i.e. taxes. Given that legalization of online poker is certainly going to involve introducing new tax codes or modifying exising tax code, that part of the legislation (and likely the overall bill) will have to be introduced by the House of Representatives.

Good catch regarding my post, but I still stand by my prediction that such legislation is at least 18 months away.

Not sure if I buy just because the GOP controls the house that they wouldnt approve of it, its not a complete partisan issue.

No, I didn't misread his post. You just missed my point -- the UIGEA is the reason they mis-coded transactions, etc. (for the most part, anyway), but it is also the reason the #1 site dropped out of the US market almost 5 years ago. IOW, it was an opportunity for a huge money grab by Tilt and Stars that was necessarily created by the UIGEA, the very cause of the circumstance they supposedly did not want.

(It's okay, it's really not an important point)

QFT, especially the bolded section. People need to think about that every time the buzzword of "terrorism" is mentioned.

9/11 was terrible, but let's also put it into perspective: the same number of people that died in 9/11 die every single month in car accidents (for example), in the United States alone. In addition, 9/11 only happened because people were conditioned to do whatever hijackers say. If they had known they would be flown into buildings, they wouldn't have cooperated, which is what happened on the last plane. 9/11 could never happen again, because people won't just stand idly by when hijacked from now on. Future 9/11 events were prevented due to this, without the need for any of the "security theater" that goes on in airports now.

That's fine if you want to keep giving up your rights and freedoms to feel safe, but remember the (now-overused, but still relevant) quote: "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." Anyway, I thought it was that terrorists "hate our freedom" or some such rhetoric. Then why are "terrorists" always used as an excuse to take our freedoms away, with draconian laws like the Patriot Act? (mostly used on our own citizens in areas completely unrelated to "terrorism", btw)

Right, let's vote corrupt party #1 out of office for someone from corrupt party #2. Most laws get made by lobbyists in the USA, not by the people anymore. I vote for libertarians because I would like to see things change in a positive way, but unfortunately with a flawed voting system that creates the illusion of only two viable choices to the majority of voters (most of whom are too lazy or apathetic to care about educating themselves on the issues anyway), and without huge amounts of corporate dollars to spend on the causes I believe in, there's very little I can do myself.

Another QFT.

4/15 was an Inside Job...



Maybe if we stopped spending Billions of Dollars a year killing brown people they wouldn't need to spend Billions of Dollars a year fighting the terrorists that are created when we kill brown people and Billions of more Dollars a year trying to stop them from receiving money, support, etc, and Billions of more Dollars a year funding "Provincial Governors and Tribal Leaders" (druglords) to help us fight the terrorists that were created when we spent Billions of Dollars killing brown people.

Stop killing brown people, multiple problems solved (including run-on sentences)

Pokerstars and FTP were paying Daniel Tzvetkoff $150,000/day to operate their payment processing schemes. There are plenty of Tzvetkoff's in the world and economics dictates that in a relatively short time span there will be foreign poker sites in demand of such services. It took 4 years for the DOJ to prosecute Stars and FTP; it will only take months for new sites to be up and running.

The DOJ doesn't have any FTP or Stars' owners in custody. Technically speaking, what's to stop those guys from starting a new operation anonymously?

Really? Another I served in the military => my opinion is greater than yours? Let me tell you black, I served for 12 years and my opinion isn't any more important than yours or anyone else on this board. Seriously, where the hell does this attitude come from? If anyone who served under me spouted this nonsense I would have knocked the **** out of them.

1. It costs a heck of a lot of money to start a poker site. 2. A new site would have to build its network and lure players over (and those players would surely be concerned about whether there will be problems with the US government given what happened April 15). 3. The new site would need to look over its shoulder at all times and might be shut by the government at any point in time.

In other words, they could, but it would be a huge gamble and could cost them a ton of money if the government took action.

Jesus, Christ, are you for real?

For the record, because it seems to matter to you, I DID serve in uniform, I was honorably discharged with half a chest full of medals.

Now to the point: I agree with the poster who said that he has more faith in the european poker sites than in our government. Did you miss the point that the DOJ press release on player funds was narrowly worded to be ridiculously misleading about whether player money was seized?

Did you miss the fact that the DOJ charged people it has no intention of bringing to trial so that it would have a legal basis to seize the money of players who violated no laws whatsoever? Did you miss the fact that the DOJ has done this at least twice before?

The SDNY prosecutor's office is embarked on a crusade to steal money from innocent poker players. They don't think for half a second that there is a financial black hole they need to shine a light in to protect us from terrorists or some such nonsense. That is just their excuse for stealing our money, plain and simple. The SDNY is staffed by unethical attorneys who are acting in bad faith, pure and simple (and I say that as a former prosecutor myself). They are a disgrace to the legal profession.

The remainder of my government consists of craven cowards who allow national policy to be set by a minority of people whose intellectual processes remain firmly ensconced in the bronze age.

By contrast, Poker Stars and Full Tilt have at all times treated me honestly and fairly. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that the US gov't is more honest, more competent or more concerned about you than Stars and Full Tilt. Anybody with half a brain who has been watching this situation knows that the federal government is out to screw American players and the sites, and the sites are doing their best to treat us fairly.

I have no intention of abandoning this country and leaving it to people who have a blind an ignorant faith in the government despite all evidence to the contrary. The reason we have a dishonest government is because of sheeple who blindly defend everything government does for no reason other than it was the government that did it.



You're god damned right I'd continue to support the sites even if their owners are convicted of felonies. I'd support them BECAUSE they were convicted of felonies. they ought to wear those felony convictions as badges of honor for standing up to a corrupt government that passed a corrupt law in a corrupt way (that nevertheless didn't apply to the poker sites).

The sites earned my loyalty by being honest and ethical service providers. the government pissed away my loyalty by being completely in control of corrupt ignoramuses.

Sorry to everybody else for the rant. It just pisses me off when the hoo-rah crowd tries to steal the moral high ground on behalf of our immoral government by playing the veteran card. And the "if you don't like it, leave it" slogan has got to be the most stupid (and un-American) slogan the knee-jerk patriots have ever invented.

Mpeth:

I would not assume that the DOJ wanted to steal player funds. It looks like they had no interest in them and got them released quickly. Indeed, they probably wanted the sites to cash them out because it reduces the amounts deposited offshore and reduces the likelihood that players would play online in the future.

This isn't to say they won't go after player funds in the future, but there's no evidence of that right now.

'no individual player accounts were ever seized' does not mean that 'no player funds were seized." It means 'we only stole player money that was in the hands of processors, or in general escrow accounts." The additional statement that "the implicated sites have at all times been free to refund player money" means "bear the loss for the seizure of player funds in the hands of processors."

Preet Bhara wanted everybody to think what you did--that no player funds had been seized--but that is NOT what he said.

It's the exact same sort of lie told by the first president Bush when he said "read my lips, no new taxes," and then, no, didn't create new taxes, but did raise the rates on existing taxes.

Full Tilt has come right out and said that player funds were seized and the DOJ is refusing to release them.

I am not sure we can trust Full Tilt on that issue, but we'll see.

But at any rate, there's a difference between seizing funds and stealing (forfeiting) them. The latter has not happened.

Mpethy, I think you would be a good person to lead a group being discussed in the "Veterans for Poker Rights" thread, if such a group could work.

So basically when questioned about motives the government(the doj) is going to play the just protecting us from terrorism/crime card. Who could have guessed?

I for one expected them to leak that they were just ponds and only doing this for big gaming interests, or maybe as a government money grab.

I hope these are not the same politicians who pushed "weapons of mass destruction" as the reason for war in Iraq.


It was found out that there was no such thing to begin with. Slapping some scary words on things the government don't like and then try to destroy it has been done before.

The DoJ grabbed the money. Their motive is the same as any other criminal organization, money.

When I read massive black hole, first thing that came to mind was the billions (12 billion!!!) IN CASH that the US 'misplaced'/'lost' in Iraq. No way any of that money went to terrorism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

I am kind of getting tired of posts like this. We as a poker community need to recognize our federal government, and how it functions. The DOJ does not have a choice of who/what it prosecutes. This is an organization, lead by a man (the President) who determines what is important and what is not. The President will largely leave matters well enough alone, and only rarely will ask the DOJ to stop prosecuting a particular law.

It is the DOJ job to follow/enforce every law on the books. They do not get to pick and choose which laws should be enforced. Congress passed a law (UIGEA) which many feel was a poorly written and thought out law. However, that is not for the DOJ to decide. The only person who can decide that the UIGEA is unenforceable (hope thats a word) is President Obama.

Why does this make sense? It is 100% wrong that they time their prosecutions and indictments around the congressional schedule. They are 2 different parts of the government, with little interaction. If congress wants to talk with the DOJ, they have to summon them. And congress has no authority to tell the DOJ what to do. They can pass a law only, which is the only possible way congress can affect the DOJ